


Little Demons Sing Us What We Don't Know

by amothandalight



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hate Crimes, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, OT5, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-23 13:03:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 42,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amothandalight/pseuds/amothandalight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>[and it’s like a contest, a contest to see who will give up first, who will storm out first, who will break first, who will be the one left standing above crumpled bodies and the broken dreams of them all, and who knew that the achingly young and hopeful and naive and innocent lads they were, crying over not being picked for some stupid television show, would turn into these broken and bitter empty husks of people, insides swollen and stomachs churning]</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Harry has a mental breakdown. The others fall with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue--Harry // 7:31 PM

**Author's Note:**

> trigger warnings: depression, suicidal thoughts, racism, blood, dark thoughts, allusion to what constitutes as an almost-rape, semi-violent depiction of physical assault, post traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks.

**Harry. 7:31** PM  
  
There’s a scream sitting heavy on the tip of his tongue and he tries to swallow it back down, let it slither angrily down his throat, cage it until it claws its way back up, bite his lip til blood bubbles up, red that should be black, but this time he can’t, he can’t, he can’t--  
  
He screams.  
  
Somehow he’s gotten on his knees, bonelessly collapsed but held up by his spine, like a scarecrow, he’s nothing but a scarecrow on a stick--that’s what they say, just a pretty face, he’s nothing else, he’s nothing, nothing, nothing--and through the frenzied thumpthumpthumping in his ears he hears laughter, laughter, bubbling from the crowd, they must think it’s a joke, but it’s not a joke, it’s not, but please let it be a joke, let him be a joke, let him be something--  
  
The stares, he can feel them, feel them crawling into his skin, creeping into his bloodstream, freezing him stone cold solid so he can’t move, can’t get away, can’t breathe, but he must be breathing, somehow, he’s not dead yet--besides, the laughter in the crowd is gone so he can hear the scrape of his hitching inhalations and the whine of his wheezing exhales clawing into his eardrums, soaring over the crowd, oh god they can hear everything oh god oh god oh god--  
  
Turn off the mic turn off the mic turn off the mic turn off him turn him off now, now, now, make it stop, please make it stop, please make him stop please please please--  
  
He can feel his mouth moving and it’s only until he realizes that he can just drop his microphone and does and his eardrums collapse in the absence of sound that he realizes--no no no no no please no--he said what tore through his mind, he showed everyone, he told everyone, why?  
  
Is this is penance, his punishment, suffering the crushing, agonizing embarrassment of falling apart into splintered, shattered pieces of glass in front of a silent crowd, broadcast to the world? But what did he do to deserve this, he hasn’t done anything wrong, has he? Of course he has, he always does, but--  
  
\--it doesn’t matter now, though it does, but what matters now is that he doesn’t know what to do, he can’t move, why won’t somebody help him, why won’t someone care for once in his goddamn life--he knows the answer, knows it’s because he’s a worthless piece of shit, knows he deserves nothing, nothing, nothing at all--but he thought the boys cared about him, no, they’re watching him like he’s a zoo animal, an experiment gone wrong, go ahead then, have a laugh, he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care--  
  
He recoils at the touch of strong hands under his armpits, why are they touching him there, it’s disgusting, he’s disgusting, though he already knew that, knows that everyone else knows that, knows that he’s absolutely nothing but disgusting--is disgusting better than nothing? He wishes he knew, but he never knows anything at all.  
  
At least he’s moving, he’s being dragged, now he has something to be grateful for--guilt springs up and coats his throat so heavy, so heavy, it makes him gag, makes him vomit, he’s so sorry, he’s so, so sorry--someone’s taking him away, off the stage, off the torture chamber, someone cares. Hot burning tears sting his eyes, hot burning tears of gratitude, he wants to thank them for taking him out of there, saving him only--  
  
\--only he can’t be saved.  
  
The dark heavy truth makes him tremble, shake with empty sobs. He’s nineteen, he shouldn’t be crying, shouldn’t be falling apart, but he can’t stop, can’t stop, can’t stop.  
  
He figures out that he is lying down, his back trembling against a hard cold concrete floor, and that his eyes are closed--when did that happen? he’s scared, terrified, what is happening to him? he can’t remember--and he’s squeezing his eyes shut to stop the tears but they slide down his face anyway, burning scalding tracks into his skin, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, and suddenly, finally, he can move, he’s not a scarecrow anymore, and his hands are scratching his face, digging into the skin, trying to stop the pain, stop the tears, get off get off get off--he thinks he says this out loud--but it doesn’t work somehow, somehow it makes it worse.  
  
Harry Harry Harry, he thinks he hears, Harry Harry Harry, as something grabs his wrists and pulls them away--why are they stopping him? he has to stop the burning tears or they’ll burn his face off, then he’ll really be nothing--and though he struggles, fights, rocks back and forth and yells, or maybe screams, is there a difference? though he does everything, it’s not enough, it never is.

In a sharp bony burst of clarity he realizes that the entire truth of what has been going on inside his head will be revealed eventually, the lads will know, the papers will know, his mum will know, all the fans will know, and they'll hate him and fear him and he is not sure which is worse.  
  
Suddenly he’s afraid what he’ll say, what he’ll tell everyone if he starts talking, so he bites down on his lower lip, bites hard until the sharp copper taste floods his mouth--he wonders if there’s enough blood in him to flood the room, where ever he is, and he wonders if he’d drown, drown in his own blood before he died of blood loss, wonders if it would hurt to die, but he’s wondered this before and never come up with an answer and this really isn’t the time for philosophical thinking and so he only focuses on the idea of death, the quiet, soft, blissful nothingness he imagines it to be, and he suddenly wants it, needs it because this--  
  
\--this is unbearable and he can’t do it anymore.  
  
Harry Harry Harry, he knows he hears, and he recognizes the voice, it’s Liam, and he’s never heard him like this, with his words laced with frantic panic, it’s alien to him, is it even Liam? He realizes, faintly and with a smudge of relief, that it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters, does it?  
  
Another scream bubbles up inside him, he is like a volcano, he is going to explode, and he doesn’t try to bottle it up, shove it down, swallow it thickly--he’d like to think he doesn’t try, but he really knows that he has no control anymore, none at all.  
  
He screams, and his throat hurts, and he screams, and his throat hurts, and he screams and he screams and he screams.  
  
He hurts.  
  



	2. Liam // 8:23 PM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be posting these (I had five to a chapter originally, if that makes any sense) sporadically but timely until I run out of them and actually have to write a chapter.

**Liam. 8:23** PM  
  
His horror is burning a hole through his stomach and he has to fight the urge to lift up his shirt in the middle of the private room the hospital people shoved them into, to check to make sure there isn’t actually a gaping hole there. At the way things are today he would honestly not be so surprised. Stranger, more terrifying things have happened in the last hour.  
  
There’s bile churning in the back of his throat. He is a cauldron, filled to the brim with stunned disbelief and fear and worry and held-back tears and if anything else is tipped into the frothing mix he will explode.  
  
He is suddenly struck by the realization that he can’t feel his fingers and he looks down and no, his fingers haven’t fallen off, they’re still there, wrapped around the wood armrests so tight they’ve gone white. He flexes them, wincing as the blood rushes back with tiny needles zooming through his veins, wishing the rest of him would go numb, or at least his brain, because the sounds of Harry’s screams are echoing in his head, and they won’t stop, they just won’t--  
  
No.  
  
He is okay.  
  
He is okay.  
  
He is not okay.  
  
Then there’s a tentative hand at his shoulder. He flinches, and he doesn’t know why.  
  
“Liam, you alright?” asks Louis. His eyes are devoid of the dancing light Liam is used to seeing in them, but there is a soft worried-ness tucked into them and it is weird on both counts.  
  
It’s a stupid question. It is the stupidest question that Louis or anyone could have asked, and Liam barely conceals his spiteful smirk--who is he? when did he turn into this person?--when Louis realizes this in the bulging silence and flushes a dull red, looking unsure of himself. This is the first time Liam has ever seen Louis like this and in the millisecond he becomes aware of it he feels like sobbing violently.  
  
“Never mind,” Louis mutters, twisting himself back into his chair until his back makes a wall between them, his striped shirt an electrified barbed-wire fence.  
  
What happened to Harry. What is happening to them. What is this. What is wrong. He has asked himself these so many times in the past hour that they have ceased to become questions, just random words thrown together, shaken, stirred, a bastardized form of alphabet soup draining from the sewage pit of his mind.  
  
He does not have answers. He has nothing, and it sifts through his fingers like quicksand, dragging him down, down, down--  
  
He needs to know something, anything. His fingers twitch. He needs to talk to his mates, his mum, someone.  
  
But he doesn’t have his phone, none of them do. A faceless person demanded them, snatched them out of their hands. He knows why. It is to ensure that they don’t witness the shit-storm happening in the media right now, about Harry, about all of them. Someone in management probably thinks that’ll drive them batshit crazy, too. Can’t have all five members insane, after all.  
  
This bitterness inside him scares him.  
  
He wonders if, in the wobbly cell-phone videos that are probably now going viral, he looks like the bumbling helpless moron he felt like up there on the stage. If people are blaming him this very instant for his inaction. If the fans are wishing that he was the one to fall instead of Harry. He wouldn’t blame them.  
  
It was Niall who dragged Harry out of there. Liam just stood there, too bewildered and terrified to do anything, and the weird thing is that before he thought that if an emergency ever came around he’d be great. But he just stood there and watched Harry shatter.  
  
He’s so sorry.  
  
Guilt tears wildly into his skin, then. He’s so goddamn self-centered. Here he is practically weeping over himself and Harry is somewhere in this hospital tied down and sedated and being poked and prodded to figure out what the hell went wrong. Liam has nothing to complain about.  
  
“What if he’s on drugs?”  
  
Niall asks the question, his voice wavering, and it’s Zayn, of all people, who leaps out of his chair after a few moments of icy wrenching silence and lunges at Niall, drags him down to the floor, begins punching him in the face, snarling “you bastard” over and over again at the speed of light.  
  
is this really happening is this really happening  
  
Niall doesn’t even fight back, just lies there, limp, doesn’t even flinch as Zayn punches him. Why the hell is he letting this happen why isn’t he doing anything why is he taking it why is Zayn hurting him why is no one stopping it why isn’t Liam stopping it?  
  
The nauseating sound of fist meeting flesh is broken by the crack of Niall’s nose breaking. Niall whimpers. It cuts through the room like a dull knife, sawing, sawing, sawing away.  
  
Zayn stumbles back, horror plastered on his face like a cheap American halloween mask. He opens his mouth as if to say something but instead turns around and flees to the chair furthest from the rest of them. When he sits down, he sinks into himself, buries his face into the palms of his hands. His shoulders shudder. He is an earthquake. No one looks at him but Liam.  
  
Two hours ago they were fine.  
  
Or everyone was fine but Harry.  
  
“imokay” whispers Niall, who has curled up into an impossibly tiny ball. He is leaking blood. He is crying, a little. He is not okay.  
  
Pretending that it never happened seems like the best thing to do. There’s no point in yelling at Zayn, who’s curled into himself in the corner, one of his hands pressed against his mouth and his other arm pressed against his eyes so hard it must hurt, and no point in answering Niall because the idea of Harry on drugs is just wrong and scary and he doesn’t want to think about it. Louis looks like he’s about to cry, but then he swallows thickly and that look on his face relaxes into terrifying blankness as he gets up and crouches down next to Niall, whispering something that Liam can’t hear.  
  
Liam just want to leave, but the door’s locked, for their own safety, of course-- “if the paparazzi were to see one of you right now you’d be eaten alive,” they were told--though it doesn’t explain why the door’s locked from the outside. But they’re trapped together whichever way and by the way it’s going now, in the near future One Direction will be four dead blokes and one mentally unstable Harry.  
  
It’s pathetic that they can’t hold themselves together. They aren’t kids anymore. They should be able to handle this.  
  
(but they are kids, they’re stuck in adolescence even though they should be past it, technically are past it, stuck in an eternal daze of laughing and singing and touching and loving and other -ings that don’t involve responsibility or growing up)  
  
They should be able to do it for Harry. But they can’t do it. They’re letting him down.  
  
Liam supposes they’ve already let him down--they’ve been awful mates, terrible people, not figuring out what was going on with Harry before he fell apart in front of the world. He wonders if Harry’ll blame them, hate them, forgive them for not helping him in time.  
  
And Harry’s so sensitive, so wincingly aware of what people think of him. This will destroy him, if he’s not already destroyed. Liam thinks that it’s terrible for thinking that Harry will never be okay again. But he thinks it’s true. None of them will ever be okay again.  
  
His eyes keep themselves closed involuntarily during a blink and he sees it happen again, sees Harry scream in between songs, collapse, the shocked eyes of the crowd, the roar of whispers that washes over them, Harry desperately sobbing out pleads for it all to stop, his whole body shuddering, limply being dragged off stage by Niall, Liam finally being able to move, going backstage and seeing Harry carving gouges into his face, grabbing one of his wrists and trying not to gag, trying not to sob, at the bits of bloody flesh under Harry’s fingernails--  
  
It’s too much and he can’t stay in this room any longer, he’s suffocating, he’s dying, he--  
  
He gets up and tries not to run to the door, tries not to show how desperate he is to leave.  
  
Liam bangs on the door. There’s a little window with crossed wire running through it in the middle, and he can’t see anyone out there.  
  
It strikes him that they are prisoners. They didn’t do anything wrong (except for letting this happen). They don’t deserve this (but they do, they do, they do). They should be up with Harry--they’re his family, they’re his best mates--not trapped helplessly down here where they are falling to pieces.  
  
“I need some water,” he spits out as way of explanation to Niall and Zayn and Louis, who he can feel staring into his back. He bangs harder.  
  
No one outside answers, no one even comes into his view. He bangs harder, and harder, and harder, until his fists ache, and then he’s slapping it so hard his palms burn, they must be on fire, but he does it again and again and again and then--  
  
\--and then somehow he’s sliding down the door, somehow turned around, with a soundless scream, collapsing at the bottom, seeing nothing but stars and ink around the edges, his chest heaving with the sobs he’s trying to keep in, he can’t cry, he’s the strong one, he has to keep it together, he has to.  
  
He can’t.


	3. Niall // 10:47 PM

**Niall. 10:47** PM  
  
He can’t feel anything. Or--  
  
Or maybe he just doesn’t want to.  
  
There is raw horror whispering to him inside his sternum, pounding against his heart saying let me in let me in let me in.  
  
Niall is weak. He can’t hold it back much longer.  
  
His stomach growls, reminding him he hasn’t eaten since what was it? breakfast, yeah, a bagel and some bacon, hours and hours ago. Strange. He doesn’t feel hungry, doesn’t imagine he’ll feel hungry ever again. The thought of food twists his throat.  
  
He just wants to sleep. The bed in his motel room--a motel because management thought it was the last place that the paps would look--isn’t as gross as he would have thought and he wants nothing more than to close his eyes and sleep. But he can’t. Every time he closes his eyes, even just for a second, he sees it all again and he doesn’t much feel like throwing up another time. He’s done plenty of that, because he hates blood, hates the smell of it, the coppery warm odor tinged with death that somehow collects in his mouth in just the memory of smelling it, so he can _taste_ it.  
  
They all got their own rooms, rooms not even connected, but rooms with doors and locks, for the first time ever. He had let the alone-ness sink into his bones at first, and it felt good, soothing, peaceful, but now he is just achingly, horribly lonely., the kind of loneliness that rubs raw at his core But Liam is probably still sleeping off the light sedative he "agreed" to take, Zayn hates him, and Louis is a faceless emotionless zombie. He has no one.  
  
He is alone with his memories and his thoughts and he feels as if he is going to be smothered. There is a mountain on his chest, pushing down and down and down until he is nothing but dust, he is Atlas, holding up his world, but he isn’t strong enough, he just isn’t.  
  
Niall truly thought that the bad stuff would never get him. He was either lying to himself, or--  
  
\--or this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to him.  
  
Does it make him a coward, that he was scared, so, so scared to go up to Harry up on that stage? He remembers the sting of panicked salt at his eyelids, blinking so fast it hurt because he didn’t want anyone to see him cry. He remembers his hands shaking so much that he was afraid they would fall off.  
  
But somehow he dredged up the courage to get Harry. It took everything out of him.  
  
He remembers the feel of Harry’s shoulder blades, how they sliced into his fingertips they were so sharp and bare under Harry’s skin. Shoulder blades aren’t supposed to feel like that, he knows, they--  
  
And his ribs. His hand had brushed against them. They were--they were not. Not good at all.  
  
And Harry was so light, so easy to drag off, like a bag of bones, as light as a feather.  
  
(almost dropping him in shock, not being able to believe that this Harry he held by his fingertips was the Harry with the curls and the charm and the easy smile that took up all his face)  
  
Icy talons wrap around his heart, clenching it so tightly he gags. He can’t remember the last time he saw Harry eat. Niall scrolls backwards in his head, trying to find a recent memory of Harry putting food in his mouth. But there’s nothing.  
  
He is a failure.  
  
He knew something was wrong with Harry before now.  He could sense it, that Harry wasn’t  quite right. It was the weird look in his eyes, the way he stopped flirting with everyone he met, shrugging off their hugs and pushing away their teasing hands and not looking them in the eye. He knew. He’s sure of it (is he?).  
  
But he hadn’t talked to him about it, hadn’t told anyone.  
  
It wasn’t his business, he had told himself. Harry was fine, he had told himself. It'd make things worse to interfer.  
  
Guilt is tearing frantically at his insides, burrowing into his veins and through his skin, tethering him down. It hurts it hurts it hurts.  
  
It is his fault. That’s probably why Zayn punched him. Zayn knew, he had to know, that Niall had fucked up.  
  
He got what he deserved.  
  
He doesn’t think anyone’s noticed the long, scabbed-over gash on his neck from where Harry scratched him, which he also probably deserves. Niall knows he should tell someone, get it checked out. Also his nose probably needs to be looked at. He should have done that when they were at the hospital. But they had to leave so suddenly, because Liam, he--they had to get him out of there. And it’s only right that he should suffer a bit.  
  
His nose is throbbing angrily, hot pulses of pain that cradle his face in their arms. He deserves it. There’s something else good about it, though. It’s something to focus on, something to think about besides everything else.  
  
But it’s not enough. There is a bitter taste in his mouth from remembering and he feels like he’ll throw up again so he needs to do something to distract him.  
  
He looks over at the TV. Niall knows they’ve been sternly ordered not to even go near it. TV news is better than the tabloids on the internet, but Management doesn’t want them seeing anything about Harry.  
  
But.  
  
He needs this. He just wants to watch American cartoons. He needs a laugh.  
  
He weighs the remote in his hands, slides his pointer finger back and forth against the little bump on the power button, trying to gain the courage to turn it on.  
  
He turns it on.  
  
He turns it off before the flash of light can materialize into something he can see, something that can send daggers into his eyes. He turns it back on. He turns it back off.  
  
He does it again and again and again until the walls reach out for him with gnarled, cold hands, slide into his chest and wrap around his lungs. Distantly he hears a quiet, gargled scream. He supposes it’s him.  
  
Suddenly the remote launches itself at the TV, flying through the air so quickly Niall almost misses it. There is an impossibly loud bang, and sparks, and a huge black hole that sucks the air in his lungs and everything good left in him out.  
  
He is a deflated balloon, wilted and limp. He doesn’t have the strength to sit up anymore. Flopping back onto the bed--when did he get on the bed?--he closes his eyes involuntarily.  
  
Harry is painted on the backs of his his eyelids, and he tries to focus on anything, anything else--  
  
That is when he hears the wild sobs seep into the room from the room over. Louis’ room.  
  
Before he quite knows what he is doing Niall grabs one of the pillows, slowly turns over, and wraps it around his head, covering his ears. Breathing into the vaguely-gross smelling comforter, he shakily sighs when Louis is scratched out by the howling in his ears, the steady thump in his pulse.  
  
Niall thinks he should go over there, knock on Louis' door and see what he can do to help. It is what a good person, a good friend, would do. But--  
  
But he just can’t take that, on top of everything else. It’s too much too. He is a rubber band, stretched too tight too tight too tight. He is going to snap. He is never going to be okay.  
  
Nothing will ever be okay ever again, will it.  
  
Deep down he’s known that this, this incredible life he’s been living (the opportunities, the best friends, the girls, the money, the pride in his dad’s eyes, the feeling that he’s worth something, the idea that people care about him, love him, the idea that there’s something he can do that has actual value and worth, such an incredibly odd, beautiful idea) has been fake or at least unsustainable, unrealistic, Too Good To Be True.    
  
He’d known that it would have to end someday.  
  
Just not this soon.  
  
Just not like this.  
  
And it’s like there’s two Nialls, the cheerful laughing eternal optimist (the one people see him as, the one he wants to be, the one he actually usually is) and the cringing insecure guilty tongue-tied pessimist with rain clouds chained to his ankles (the one he is some days), and they’re so unbelievably different it’s hard to reconcile them as the same person.  
  
The lads know when something sets him off and makes him change into the second Niall, embarrassing as it is, or they can just see it in his face when he gets up in the morning that he isn’t himself, can tell that he needs an extra cuddle or two, a gentle hand at his shoulder, a warm cup of tea pressed into his hand, an arm slung around him that pulls him into a hug that doesn’t him go until he relaxes, getting him drunk enough to cry because he needs to and won’t do it sober.  
  
When he’s around them, the second Niall doesn’t come out very often.

He's alone now.


	4. Zayn // 2:13 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning: depiction of a hate crime

**Zayn. 2:13** AM  
  
So this is what it must feel like to drown.  
  
Zayn stares at Louis through the slightly-open door. It’s the middle of the night, probably early morning, even, but that doesn’t really matter. None of them are able to sleep. But he doesn’t know why Louis is here. Louis hates him. Everyone hates him now, because he hurt Niall.  
  
(he hates himself, too)  
  
Louis’ eyes are red-rimmed and dull. Zayn can’t imagine him smiling again. Somehow he can’t remember him smiling, either. It is like everything good in his head has been cleanly cut out. He can feel the absence of it, can feel the outline of where it used to be. He misses it so badly there is a pulsing, heavy ache pushing down on his lungs.  
  
“I was wondering if you wanted to play cards with me and Niall and Liam.”  
  
There is a desperate tone to his voice, like Louis’ well-being rests in the letters o and k and a and y.  
  
Suddenly a tidal wave of hot, filthy anger slides into him. How dare Louis try to act like everything is normal, that they can just play cards, which Zayn doesn't even really like even when everything hasn't gone to shit.  
  
“Fuck off,” he mutters, slamming the door in Louis’ face.  
  
(oh god he’s a fucking arsehole)  
  
Fuck Louis. Fuck Harry. Fuck everyone.  
  
(he doesn’t mean that)  
  
He needs--he needs--he needs something (or someone, or four someones says a tiny voice sitting on top of his frontal lobe). No--something. A pint, or ten. That’s what he needs.  
  
The fact that management and Paul ordered them to not even open their doors is so fucking irrelevant. He is so far past caring even the slightest anymore.  
  
He waits with his ear pressed against the door until he hears dejected footsteps shuffling back to another room, a door’s soft shut that reeks with finality.  
  
(what is he doing he doesn’t recognize himself)  
  
Slipping his trainers on, Zayn opens the door slowly, somehow getting it open enough to slide through without it groaning.  
  
There’s a place that caught his eye as they were being driven to the motel hours and hours ago. A 24/7 liquor store, dingy and old but still selling alcohol, for which there is an aching need for at the moment. There’s been a need since Harry started screaming--  
  
No. He won’t think about that.  
  
His door clicks shut with a whisper and he almost cries in relief when he gets to the bottom of the stairs unnoticed.  
  
Zayn flips the hood of his hoodie over him and pulls it as tightly against the back of his head as it can go, leaving his face only a shadow. He reasons that if anyone sees his face, recognizes him, he’ll be attacked--  
  
Coward.  
  
He shouldn’t be lying to himself. All he is is a scared pathetic little turtle, cowering inside its shell--but he is not a coward, he is being safe, cautious, smart--  
  
Coward.  
  
Coward.  
  
Coward.  
  
A pathetic whimpering noise escapes his mouth before he feels it vibrate on his vocal cords.  
  
He will not shatter like Harry. He will not crumble like Liam. He will not--  
  
Fuck he needs a drink.  
  
Zayn walks fast, hunched down, his hands in the pocket of his hoodie. Every time he looks up he is so afraid of making eye-contact with someone that he about pisses himself. But somehow he’s able to find the seedy 24/7 liquor store, tucked in between a closed-down barbershop and, ironically, a day-care, without bumping into anyone.  
  
The ding that welcomes him when he opens the door makes the filmy haze around his head kind of go away. He is getting close to being able to feel better.  
  
What to get what to get what to get.  
  
He doesn’t care about the taste, doesn’t care if it makes him gag or shudder, doesn’t care if it smells like piss. He just needs something that is dirt cheap and can get him as drunk as possible.  
  
Vodka. That’s it. He hates it, hates it, but it's strong and it's burning and it will put him out faster than anything else here. He wants to be so drunk he can’t see, can’t think, can’t--  
  
His fingers slide around the neck of the cheapest bottle in its section and there’s almost a skip in his step as he walks over to the counter and sets the bottle down.  
  
“ID?”  
  
His heart is a rocket, shooting up his throat then falling falling falling down into the pit of his stomach. He can feel his mouth trying to form words but all that comes out is carbon dioxide. He must look like a stupid fish.  
  
“Kid, there’s no way you’re over twenty-one,” the cashier grunts, taking the bottle off the counter and putting it behind him. “Tell you what, though, kid. I wish you were. You look like you need it.”  
  
To Zayn’s horror hot tears of frustration and embarrassment are springing to his eyes. Why is he crying he can barely hold it together he thought he was stronger than this.  
  
Stupid, stupid. He’s in America. He can’t drink here.  
  
He forgot.  
  
Roughly, he asks, “Could I have some cigs, then?” There is a raging wildfire on his cheeks. Stupid, stupid, stupid.  
  
At the man’s nod he reaches into his back pocket to grab--  
  
Nothing.  
  
There’s nothing there.  
  
He doesn’t have his wallet.  
  
“Erm,” he chokes out, “never mind.”  
  
Without waiting for the man’s response Zayn spins around, not able to manage to keep his dignity as he runs out of the store, the bottles cruelly gleaming at him in a blur.  
  
He thinks he hears the cashier laughing before the door separates them.  
  
The dark outside swallows him.  
  
He begins to walk, then--  
  
\--then ice crunches through his bones.  
  
He cannot remember which way he has to go.  
  
That means. Oh god. That means--  
  
He is lost. Lost in this strange city that he can’t even remember the name of. Lost in the middle of the night. Lost.  
   
Panic burns against his throat.    
  
oh god oh god oh god he is lost.  
  
His eyes snap shut and he barely understands that he doesn’t have the strength to stand anymore before he clumsily collapses on the rough sidewalk.  
  
A chunk of glass digs into his right palm. He thinks he might be bleeding, by the warm wetness he can feel. He doesn’t care.  
  
Zayn knows he should just go back inside the store and ask how to get back, or use their phone to call Paul.  
  
But--  
  
He can’t.  
  
He just doesn’t think he can take Paul yelling at him on top of everything else that’s gone wrong today. The only thing separating Zayn and Zayn as a sobbing wreck is his pride. Being yelled at would destroy it. He just can’t do that.  
  
Maybe it’s what he deserves, though. God knows he deserves something, after what he’s done. Or what he has failed to do.  
  
He’s always been observant. He’s a listener, a watcher. The world filters through him.  
  
So he’d taken it upon himself to watch the lads throughout all of this. He knows what makes the boys tick, knows the way their voices change when they’re upset or sad or furious or missing home, knows when their laughs don’t sound quite right. He may not know how to fix anything, but he can tell when it happens.  
  
Sure, he’s hinted to Paul and management when he knows there’s something up with one of the boys. Doesn’t make him a snitch. He thinks of it as a good thing, something he’s good at.  
  
But he somehow missed what went wrong with Harry. Thinking back on it, he remembers the blankness in his eyes. How did he not see it then. He is a fucking idiot, a fuck-up, a failure.  
  
It was his job to make sure everyone stayed okay. And he has utterly, completely failed.  
  
The rolling, acidy ball of guilt that bobs up and down in his esophagus every time he swallows is the most awful thing he’s ever felt.  
  
He’s about to cry and at this point he doesn’t even think he can stop it. He’ll be crying on a fucking sidewalk in some fucking city he doesn’t even know the name of in the middle of the night.  
  
The amount of force it’s taking him to not cry means he’s not concentrating on anything else around him.  
  
“What do we have here, boys?” a low voice drawls somewhere close to him.  
  
Zayn freezes.  
  
who is that who is he with why are they here what do they want with him why is terror flying through his veins what is going on  
  
There are heavy footsteps, a lot of them, and when Zayn somehow gets the courage to dart his eyes up for a moment his heart stops as he sees the expression of what can only be something like blood-lust on the guy’s face. And there’s more than a couple blokes--is this a gang? His first experience with a gang in America. A day of firsts, then. First mental breakdown of the group, first real fight of the group, first time feeling so fucking lonely in a long, long time.  
  
“Why ya out here so late?” the man questions, his voice taunting. Zayn doesn’t think he wants an answer. He keeps his mouth shut.  
  
There’s a hard shove at his shoulder and he almost almost almost falls but somehow he keeps his balance.  
  
Nope. Not smart.  
  
“I asked you a question,” he growls. “Show me respect or else I’ll show you what happens to people who don’t.”  
  
No.  
  
He won’t.  
  
“So this little asshole thinks he’s better than me, is that right, asshole.”  
  
Zayn thinks he’s supposed to answer that one, so he shakes his head. So that’s his name now. Asshole. There’s a part of him that thinks it’s suiting.  
  
“Where’s your mommy, asshole? Does she know you’re out here? I bet she doesn’t care, does she. She’s too busy being a fucking whore to care about you, huh? I bet no one cares about you, yeah, asshole, that’s why you’re out here by yourself--”  
  
It keeps going like that and Zayn is so goddamn proud of himself because he only stiffens a bit, lets the insults roll off him. He doesn’t let them in. He is somehow stronger than he thought.  
  
Then it stops.  
  
please let them leave just let them leave fucking just leave him alone  
  
“Let’s see what a pretty face asshole has, yeah?”  
  
His hood is suddenly pulled back, off his head, and he recoils violently before he can stop himself.  
  
He waits for the cry of recognition.  
  
But it never comes.  
  
“Look, boys, he’s the color of shit!” the man crows.  
  
That gets him.  
  
He can’t stop himself from flinching and he hates himself because now they know they’ve struck a nerve.  
  
One of the men bends over, laughing. “His name is asshole and he’s the color of shit!” he brays.  
  
None of the other men are laughing, though.  
  
“Fucking arab,” he hears.  
  
now there are tendrils of terror sneaking into his face oh god what if--  
  
There’s an impossibly-strong hand at his arm and he is being yanked up, forced to unsteadily stand.  
  
what the hell is happening  
  
“This is for my brother. He died fighting you scum,” a different voice hisses in his ear, and Zayn wants to tell him that his logic makes no sense, but there is a fist at his gut and flying agony and hunching over and gagging and so he really does not have time for that right now.  
  
Then he is only a churning sea of pain. His life ceases to exist beyond thuds and oomphs and cracks and soft crying and throbs and dull moans.  
  
All he knows is that he is being attacked from all sides, pushed onto the ground, his head making a sickening crack when it hits the pavement, kicked until he is in the fetal position, kicked over and over and over and over and over and over and over and--  
  
Until it stops.  
  
“I hope you die, you Muslim piece of shit,” one of them snarls, and a warm wet blob hits his cheek.  
  
He is being spit on. Fucking hell, he is being spit on.  
  
More follow and they slide down his face as one uniform glob of saliva.  
  
It is the worst, most humiliating thing that has ever happened to him, but the dull blade of absolute fury in his stomach is tamed by the throbbing, horrific pain being emitted by every single fucking cell in his body.  
  
He can’t even move to swipe it off his face.  
  
“Ya know, we were going to make you our little bitch cause you’re so _pretty_ but we don’t want to touch something so fucking _dirty_ , asshole,” the first guy whispers into his ear.

  
He is unbelievably horrified and so goddamn relieved at the same time, at what he has avoided. Oh god he was almost--they almost--they were about to--  
  
No. He won’t think about it.  
  
There is a final kick to his gut and at this point he can’t even react. He moans--a god-awful, pitiful, pathetic sound that he never thought he was capable of--and it along with their footsteps and whoops of victory make a grotesque symphony fading away into the darkness.  
  
There comes a time when he realizes that he can’t hear anything anymore.  
  
does that mean it’s over oh god please let it be over please please please  
  
The hope that they are gone almost crushes him, it is so massive and desperate.  
  
His eyes open, finally, and he is so glad to see he is alone that his eyelids don’t hold back the tears. They stream down his face and he just hopes, hopes to fucking god, that no one will see him like this.  
  
If the paparazzi got a picture of him right now--  
  
Panic surges up in him again but he’s able to force it down. It’s the middle of the night. No one’s out here except people like those fucking thugs.  
  
He’s alone. The night now seems like a dark blanket, curling around him in a way that’s almost nice.  
  
Zayn knows he might have a concussion, probably does, by the sound his head made when it hit the concrete. Dimly in his head there is the thought that he shouldn’t sleep if he has a concussion, because he might not wake up.  
  
But then he realizes that he doesn’t care if he does or doesn’t. It is terrifying. He terrifies himself. But he is tired. So so so so tired. Maybe if he sleeps the pain will go away. Maybe if he sleeps it’ll all go away. Maybe when he wakes up everything will be okay again.  
  
He lets his angry, sobbing pulse sing him to sleep.  
  



	5. Louis // 7:29 AM

**Louis. 7:29 a.m**  
  
He hasn’t cried in so long that it feels weird to do it, unnatural, like an alien has grabbed fists of Louis’ emotions in its hands and is sprinkling them like confetti inside his head.  
  
The problem with Louis is that he feels too much. He can’t help it, could stop feeling as much as he could stop his own heart from beating, and in the past two years he has been so filled with joy and wonder and good things and shit that he somewhat wishes he could bottle himself and make a fortune selling Elixir of Life. The worst thing he’s felt until now is exhaustion and the stupid inconsequential little rows between the lads.  
  
But now all he breathes is storm clouds bloated with the most terrible things in the world.  
  
Rationally, he knows Harry isn’t dead or seriously injured or beyond help.  
  
What he feels, though, is like Harry is.  
  
There’s guilt, of course. Massive, massive amounts of crippling guilt. Which comes from being Harry’s best mate and completely letting him down, obviously. And also from being completely oblivious to what was going on with Harry when the signs were there smacking him upside the head. Yeah, Louis is flooded with guilt, drowning from guilt, dying with guilt.  
  
But there’s something else. There’s grief.  
  
He is grieving for Harry.  
  
He is grieving for the rest of them.  
  
Because there is this cold, evil voice clinging onto his brainstem with billions of needles, telling him that things will never be the same. That he and the other lads will never be the same. That his blissful existence has ended. That he is back in the real world where Bad Things happen to him.  
  
The guilt and the grief and the fear are piling on top of him--he gets a sudden flash of memory, of Harry shouting “dog-pile” when Louis was on the floor reading some sort of stupid novel, and having four boys launch themselves at him, all elbows and knees and sharp painful angles--and it kind of feels like that except with none of the good parts, like it turning into a massive cuddle and ending with Paul finding them all snoring and drooling and joining in the dog-pile himself to wake them up.  
  
There’s a knock at the door and he tries futilely to calm himself because oh god he misses What Was and he can’t stop crying but he has some dignity left and he doesn’t want to be a sobbing mess in front of whoever’s at the door. More knocks follow and then it’s a steady stream. Go away, he wants to shout, leave me alone, stop knocking.  
  
He doesn’t want to answer it. He’s an emotional sponge, always has been, soaking up the emotions of people around him, and right now he can’t handle any more. He will burst if he is exposed to any more emotions.  
  
But the knocking doesn’t stop, is...frantic in its rate and volume. Maybe it’s news about Harry. That’s what’s been so awful. Twelve hours, and nothing. No one’s told them anything and it’s killing him.  
  
Fighting down the soft strands of hope that are fluttering in his stomach, Louis pads over to the door, furiously scrubbing at his eyes. The door flies open almost before Louis can open it.  
  
Niall bursts in and his face is white, almost comically so. Louis didn’t know people’s faces could actually turn that color.  
  
“Zayn’s in hospital.”  
  
His heart goes into orbit somewhere above his chest.  
  
“Paul said he went out sometime last night and he must’ve been attacked or something coz someone found him lying there on the sidewalk--Lou, he was almost dead, he said, and--” Niall’s spitting out the words in a blur, like having them leave his body will make them not true.  
  
Suddenly he buckles, his hand still on the door handle, and starts heaving.  
  
No--sobbing.  
  
Niall, unflappable Niall--  
  
He has no choice.  
  
Louis is at his side in an instant, kneels down, wraps his arms around Niall, absorbs the roaring wrinkles of pain from his body.  
  
The thing he hates most is that while he sucks in emotions, he never takes them away. He is only an emotional multiplier. It just hurts him.  
  
Why is everything happening at once? First Harry, then Liam, now Zayn. It’s like the ripple effect. One bad thing happens and they all start to fall, like dominos. There’s song lyrics in that, Louis thinks. Who knows, maybe they’ll write a fucking brilliant album off of all this and people will say that it was all worth it. He’s become cynical, suddenly, and he hates himself.  
  
And he hates everyone else, too, to be honest. None of the lads have asked him how he’s doing. No one’s offered him a hug. He kind of fucking needs one, to be honest.  
  
Then-- _Zayn. Harry._  
  
He has much bigger things to worry about now besides himself. Always so goddamn self-centered, people have told him loads of times before, so focused on yourself. No, no, no, he’s said, he just feels too much. But, it occurs to him, they’re right. They’ve been right. He is self-centered. Throwing a pity party for himself inside his own stupid head, while Zayn’s in hospital--and it’s bad, by the way Niall’s reaction is--and Harry. He can’t even imagine what Harry’s going through, doesn’t want to, honestly--  
  
but he does, sees in his head Harry tied down with a straightjacket of some sort on, still screaming, screaming, screaming, and no one’s there for him, he’s all alone, bet he feels like he’s been deserted, abandoned, betrayed, cause that’s what they’ve done, haven’t they? left him when he needed them, needs them, most, just because management told them to, they’re just sheep now, little stupid sheep that can be herded wherever without a fight, they’re _pathetic,_ they’re _cowards_ , and--  
  
Niall stirs suddenly, brushes angrily at his face.  
  
“Sorry,” he mutters, his voice tainted a dull, flushed red. “It just got--”  
  
“Too much, yeah,” Louis says. He understands. Intimately understands, actually.  
  
They separate awkwardly--what? hugs never used to be awkward. already things have changed so much--and Louis runs a hand through his hair.  
  
“So is he...alright? Zayn. He’s okay, right?”  
  
Niall blinks slowly, like a bemused owl waking up from a nap.  
  
“Dunno,” he says softly. “We’re going to the hospital at eight. Paul told me.”  
  
More pacing in a cage, then. Louis doesn’t fancy being trapped yet again in one of those private hospital rooms--prison cells, the bitter voice in the back of his head hisses--for hours once more. Not with how it ended up last time, with Liam--  
  
Liam.  
  
“Is Liam okay with this?”  
  
Niall flinches.  
  
“He doesn’t know yet,” he whispers, staring intently at a spot on the wall. His lips are trembling.  
  
“Am I expected to tell him, then?” Louis asks. He doesn’t bother to try to mask the anger in his voice. No. He’s angry. Furious, even.  
  
A jerk of Niall’s head tears the room in half.  
  
“please.”  
  
“Fine, you selfish prat,” Louis mutters. “I’ll tell him.”  
  
Niall stiffens, as if out of Louis’ mouth has tumbled Medusa’s head.  
  
And the look on his face digs a rusty knife into Louis’ stomach oh god he’s a monster. But Louis can’t seem to stop his legs from carrying him out the door, can’t stop his shoulder from roughly bumping into Niall, can’t stop his throat from swallowing his apology.  
  
He can, however, resist from looking back.  
  
who is he.  
  
who has he become.  
  
The morning air bites at his face. It stings, a bit. But it clears up the mass of awful haze stuck in between his ears, and he can finally think a little. Breathe a little.  
  
Last night when he was out on the balcony, trying to get the lads together for a game of cards--and had failed miserably, none of them wanted to be around him, so he had played solitaire for hours alone in his room and never won a single game--the air had still held the day’s warmth and dust and awful choking horror. Now, it’s nice, almost. Peaceful.  
  
Management had had a good idea for once, putting them in a dinky motel and renting every single room. No one knows they’re here, no one’s here but them, and it is the first time in a really, really long while that he has been in a public place and felt human.  
  
He savors the feeling, because the paparazzi or the fans will find them soon--they always do--and soon there will be a frothing, heaving sea of screams and yells and flashing blinding lights and groping hands surrounding the motel.  
  
There is a bird chirping on a branch, so close he can almost touch it, and he hasn’t heard a bird chirping into silence, glorious silence, for so long now it brings tears to his eyes.  
  
He’s a fucking wreck.  
  
They’re all fucking wrecks, and that scares him the most.  
  
He hopes they aren’t all ticking time-bombs, aren’t all going to pull a Harry at some point or another. The media would have a field day with that one. One Direction to the Loony Bin, will scream the headlines. They’ll have a special on E, The Rise and Fall of One Direction, and milk the last bit of money they can out of it before disappearing into various psych hospitals. Maybe he’ll write a book, if he’s coherent enough, sign copies from his padded room.  
  
(actually, if it really honestly happens to him, he knows he’ll be perfectly alright. he’ll say the stress had gotten a bit much, tell a rude joke, slip the word “penis” a few times into the interview, grab someone’s bum and everything will be fine, back to normal. he hopes)  
  
It would be funny if he were telling it to someone--like Niall, trusty Niall, who laughs at everything Louis does or says because he’s the sort of person who finds everything funny (not because he’s stupid or dim, but because his veins flow on laughter and he needs it to live)--but in his head it falls flat, horribly flat, because there’s an awful lot of truth in it.  
  
(truth is, sometimes he thinks he likes niall the best, needs niall more than all of the other lads, because niall appreciates him, and that’s what everyone wants, innit? to be appreciated? to be looked at with a face that says ‘I see you’ and ‘thank you for being you’? and that’s why he’s near gagging with this immense cloud of guilt that’s trying to force its way down his throat. because he hurt niall. threw a knife into his back and enjoyed doing it.)  
  
He knows he’s stalling, with his hand hovering next to Liam’s door.  
  
Liam had to be sedated, for god’s sake, last night. Panic attack, they were told. Is that what Harry had? It sure seemed a lot worse than Liam’s.  
  
He shouldn’t be speculating about it in the first place, because he’s already gone over what it could be, looking up at the ceiling at three a.m., stargazing at the constellations of medical horrors, and right now he’s pretty positive it’s a brain tumor, and that will never end well for any of them.  
  
especially harry because that’ll mean they’ll have to shave his head and then who would harry be without his curls? might be enough to drive him over the edge again--  
  
stop  
  
Louis swallows, gathers up all the courage he has left in him, and knocks at the door.  
  
After a few long seconds it opens and Louis doesn’t know what he was expecting--Liam curled over a puddle of tears, soaking the ugly carpet? demonic pictures painted in blood on the wall? a destroyed motel room?--but to his pleasant surprise Liam looks okay, good, even, and when he smiles at him, however thin it is, Louis feels a surge of blissful relief because someone’s alright here and that means he doesn’t have to be the okay one anymore.  
  
“I still don’t want to play cards,” Liam says, a hint of a teasing laugh in his voice, and Louis suddenly can’t bear to tell him about Zayn because he never wants to let this Liam go.  
  
He tries to smile back but it probably comes out like a grimace, though, because Liam’s face droops so fast it’s like the nerves to his face have been hacked off with a machete (okay so maybe he watched Friday the 13th last night as a “fuck you” to management and also because the more “ohmygodimabouttopissmyselfthisissoscary” in him the less room there was for the bad stuff and also because the movie channel was the only thing on besides news).  
  
“What is it?” Liam asks softly, icy dread painted in his voice. “Is it Harry?”  
  
Louis stares at the floor.  
  
“Zayn went out last night and he got attacked or something,” he says to the carpet. “Niall says he’s in hospital. Don’t know much else.”  
  
Liam swallows, Louis can hear it, and he looks up to see Liam with his lips pursed tightly, hundreds of questions in his irises. But his eyes are dry and his breath is steady and Louis thinks maybe Liam’s going to be okay with this, if he can get past this next part.  
  
“We’re going to the hospital at eight, apparently,” Louis mutters, getting it out as fast as he can, after it’s clear that Liam isn’t going to ask him anything.  
  
He searches Liam’s face for any sign that he’s going to repeat yesterday’s awfulness.  
  
But no.  
  
Liam just nods.  
  
“Do you think Paul will let us go to McDonald’s for breakfast before the hospital?” Liam asks, and Louis grins in spite of himself because Liam and Paul are so anti-McDonald’s (“do you know what they put in that?” Liam mutters every. single. time. when everyone orders, “rubbish, straight from the rubbish bin,” with Paul nodding approvingly) that it’s hysterical to think of Paul’s face when Liam asks him.  
  
Louis leans against the doorway, basking in the warm feeling of normalcy for a few seconds.  
  
“I think Paul would let us buy a McDonald’s at this point.”  
  
A soft laugh from Liam, and Louis suddenly feels like he’s going to cry.  
  
He’s exhausted, bone-tired--he hasn’t slept in what has it been now? thirty? thirty-six? hours, he hasn’t done that since primary, where you were deemed acceptably cool if you disobeyed your mum and stayed up all night in the middle of the school week--and that’s probably why he can’t keep himself together, but maybe it’s the sound of Liam laughing, a gossamer promise that everything is going to be okay.  
  
The back of his nose tingles furiously and Louis has to turn away, burrow his face into his shoulder for a few seconds before the urge to start bawling goes away.  
  
He flashes Liam a shaky grin, tosses a “I’m going to go get ready” over his shoulder, spins around feeling the best he’s felt in the last twelve hours.  
  
The smile dies on his face when he sees Niall, a look of betrayal slapped on his face, whydoyouhatemebutnotliam slipping silently out of his mouth like putrid oil. He must’ve seen everything, heard everything.  
  
oh no  
  
Niall’s lips tighten. His face becomes stone.  
  
What is he supposed to do? He can’t really explain that Niall, you made me feel like absolute shite while Liam made me feel kind of happy again, not at all your fault, Niall, but still. No one gets the “emotional sponge” thing.  
  
So he says nothing.  
  
Niall moves out of his way this time, stretching himself thin along the railing--of course Louis wasn’t going to purposefully bump into him again, and something inside him crumbles when he realizes that Niall honestly thought he would do it--and Louis feels Niall staring daggers into his back as he walks down the hallway to his room.  
  
The key slides into the lock and Louis opens the door and closes the door and robotically changes into something he won’t mind the paps getting a picture of him in, without the stains of last night’s afterthought of a dinner--takeaway from a petrol station down the street, wrinkly old hot dogs and bags of crisps and wilted salad--brought to them after midnight (eating like a starving animal, almost crying because there was something to think about besides Harry, worrying that he would choke and die on his cucumber without anyone to save him because he was eating alone, eating alone for the first time in months).  
  
He doesn’t even care what he’s wearing, rolls up the bottoms of his trousers without bothering to make sure they’re perfectly even, puts his shoes on with socks that go past the edge of the shoe. The people who grabbed their stuff from the hotel they were staying in forgot his hair pomade in the bathroom so he doesn’t even try to do anything with his hair besides running a hand through it, bending over and shaking it like Harry does. It’s a right failure.  
  
He’s looked worse, probably. It’d be best for them to all look put together, a united front of we’re-so-united-we-match-and-have-our-hair-done but this is the best he’s going to do.  
  
Still no mobile, he’d looked for five minutes, tore the room apart before remembering that Management still has it--oh god, what if they’re going through it, reading his texts, looking at his pictures, he’s screwed--and his back right pocket is naked without it, he feels like he’s missing his spleen.  
  
He did find a lacy pink thong hidden under the mattress while searching for his phone, and he had looked around for a second, confused by the lack of screaming, hysterical laughter from the lads, before he had remembered he was alone.  
  
Louis looks over the motel room as he stands at the doorway. It’s a right mess, now. Like he’s trashed it. This isn’t the kind of fine establishment that’ll send a cleaning lady in after them, though, so he feels not-guilty for leaving it this way.  
  
Liam would make him clean it up, though. If he was sharing the room with Liam, Liam would refuse to let him out the door without tidying up a bit, and stare at him disapprovingly with his arms crossed until Louis had written a nice note thanking the motel staff with fifty dollars folded nicely on top.  
  
But Liam’s not here with him, and so with a flick of the light switch the room goes dark, covering the mess. He’s got a feeling that they’ll be at a new hotel or motel or whatever this evening, so it doesn’t even matter.  
  
Every time he turns around after closing the door behind him he is expecting to see a media van or a stampede of girls running furiously at him. But he looks out, sees only their van in the parking lot with Paul leaning against it, breathes out in relief.  
  
Niall and Liam are both punctual, for once, and they head together down the hall and down the stairs in a way that’s not together at all. There’s an eternity between Niall and Louis, even though they’re barely three feet apart. It feels wrong. But he doesn’t have a clue how to fix this.  
  
(or how to fix anything, everything’s so fucked up, and he feels like he has to do something but he’s so helpless, so powerless, it’s killing him)  
  
The van is curiously surrounded by nothing, and they can walk--walk--to it by themselves, not shaped into some morbid congo-line, not corralled by security. It feels weird, but good-weird. Nice-weird.  
  
“Sorry that I couldn’t get a helicopter, lads,” Paul says. “Would’ve made it a bit easier for you.”  
  
They all shrug, wondering how in the world this situation could be made more easy.  
  
There’s two pulsing, glaring empty spots where Harry and Zayn would always sit--Liam’s right, they do have assigned seats, even though they never talk about it--and all three of them refuse to look near them as they settle in. Liam and him take their middle seats. Niall still looks like a kicked puppy, all alone in the back, hunched over into the side of the car like he hopes it’ll reach out and hug him.  
  
Paul starts the car and they pull out of the parking lot smoothly, and it’s so strange not to feel that awful, panicked feeling of being trapped by a human tsunami that he starts to smile.  
  
“Going to drive around for a bit, throw off anyone if they’re trying to tail us,” Paul explains, giving Louis a weird look in the mirror as they head down the opposite way they came yesterday.  
  
was that really yesterday it seems like ages and ages ago  
  
Liam nudges Louis with his elbow, a smile creeping up on his face.  
  
“Hey Paul, would you mind taking us round McDonald’s?” Liam asks, clapping a hand over his mouth as he starts softly laughing.  
  
Through the rear-view mirror they can see his face and the look on it, his reaction, makes them giggle like schoolgirls, and it feels so damn good to laugh.  
  
Paul agrees, and he and Liam high five, and it feels so normal, so beautifully, wonderfully normal, that his cheeks hurt from grinning.  
  
Then he makes the mistake of looking back at Niall, the smile wilting away, a dying weed, the look of absolute pure hurt on Niall’s face is so awful.  
  
sorry niall so sorry  
  
He wants to tell him the truth, that he honestly needs Niall more than any other of the boys, anything to get rid of that look on his face, and his mouth is opening and he takes a breath--  
  
But somehow Niall’s got his iPod, guess they didn’t take that away, and then there’s angry, vile, filthy rap spitting out of the earbuds, so loud it creeps into his brain and starts chewing his neurons off.  
  
This has happened before, the music being too loud, and Paul would usually sternly lecture them on the perils of listening to music too loudly, ruining their ears and their performances and their careers. But he doesn’t this time, just keeps on silently driving them to breakfast, his shoulders visibly tense.  
  
They drive past a building that’s covered in some sort of reflective metallic stuff, and when Louis can see his shadow of an outline in the car reflected on the building’s side, can see himself moving back and forth, he almost cries again. Because somehow seeing his reflection makes him feel like he’s real, that he’s here, that he exists somewhere other than inside his own head, and he needs to be reminded of that.  
  
They all tense up when they get to the drive through, because even though the only person who’s visible is Paul, most of their fans know what Paul looks like. The girl at the window could be a fan, and could recognize Paul, and infer that they’re with him. And then--  
  
His fingernails are digging into his clenched palms as he tries to push the panic crawling up his throat down. The van is locked. They will be okay.  
  
Except--  
  
Except then Paul looks over to his right and swears, right in the middle of ordering.  
  
Paul never swears.  
  
Louis looks over, and--  
  
fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck  
  
There are five media vans pulling up in the parking lot.  
  
One could be coincidence.  
  
But five?  
  
Five?  
  
Five media vans mean that people know that this is their van, know that they’re inside it, know that following their van will lead them to the hospital where Zayn and Harry are at.  
  
Dread plays a grating tune against his ribcage.  
  
Then people are leaping out of the vans with their cameras and Louis feels like he is being mauled by all the flashes as the paparazzi run towards the van, still idling next to the window.  
  
“DRIVE!” he hears, a horrible, agonizing scream from the back of the van--  
  
Niall.  
  
Paul guns it, but they all know they’re fighting a losing battle.  
  
The cold tinted window is a magnet for his forehead, and he slumps against it in defeat.  
  
They can never win.  
  



	6. Liam // 8:17 AM

**Liam. 8:17 a.m.**

He’s in the middle of asking Paul for the seventh time if they can get some answers, some news, about Harry and Zayn and Paul is in the middle of telling him no, they’re not allowed to tell the boys anything yet, when they pull into the hospital parking lot.

And they’re stunned into silence, Liam’s questions wilting and dying in his throat.

Their panic about the five media vans following them seems laughable now. Because look.

The crowd is absolutely mental outside the hospital’s entrances--all five of them, how is this legal, why aren’t the police here yet--and they drive around and around, following the van holding the bodyguards and security guys as they try to pick the one with the least people, but it’s hopeless, all of them look like hell, cars vomiting people, fans and paps alike, and at this point it’s hard to distinguish them from one another, bleeding into each other until it’s just one roaring swarming horrific mass.

“I don’t want to get out,” says Niall quietly from the back.

His music must be so loud in his ears that Niall can’t even hear himself talk, so it’s impossible to say whether Niall meant for them to hear that or not.

Liam twists around in his seat and tries to give Niall a sympathetic glance, crinkling his eyes and trying to smile softly.

But--

A frown welcomes him, Niall’s practically glaring at him, and what did he do?

No, he’s glaring at Louis, and yeah Liam has felt the tension between them ever since they walked down the stairs together at the motel, but he’s never seen Niall glare at anyone. Niall doesn’t keep grudges, can barely stay mad at them for a minute before one of them makes him laugh--so easy--and is so quick to forgive the people he loves it’s like he was never mad at them in the first place. But Niall’s glaring at Louis with an intensity that kind of scares Liam.

But there’s also this hurt look on his face.

What happened between Louis and Niall? Liam knows that when Louis is stressed or sleep-deprived or really down he gets...bitchy, for lack of a better word. His filter just disappears.

He’d ask Louis, because there’s no point in letting things fester like this, but he’s dozing, his head pressed against the window, mouth slightly open (that’s how he knows if Louis is asleep or just closing his eyes, because Louis doesn’t like the way he looks when his mouth is gaping open and makes sure to keep it shut when he’s “resting his eyeballs” as he likes to say).

They’re dropping like flies, it seems like, and Liam can’t help but wonder who is going to be next. He’s pretty sure he was going to be the next one to fall, yesterday in the hospital waiting room, but somehow he’s made it back to being okay.

but if they’re locked in again it might come back, that horrible feeling of being trapped, the walls closing in and climbing down his throat until he can’t breathe and until he thinks he is going to die, knows he is going to die, but somehow doesn’t--

No. Paul told him that they weren’t going to be locked in again. He promised.

Actually, they are going to be trapped, at least in the hospital. There’s no way out, at least with the outside like this. Hopefully Paul will get a helicopter by then because honestly Liam doesn’t know if Niall will be able to do this again.

Honestly Liam doesn’t know if Liam’ll be able to do this again, and he hasn’t even done it yet.

At least the fans have some level of concern for them, mob them because they love them. The paps, though, only care about getting their money, getting the perfect shot or quote to plaster upon some rag to the highest bidder.

But the problem is that the fans think that they are untouchable--hell, Liam’s said over and over again that all they do is for the fans, that the fans are everything--and so they sometimes go beyond the paparazzi. Harry’s gotten scratched so badly that he needed medical attention, they’ve all had a hat or beanie stolen off them, and once they had an awful scare when some girl planted a soppy kiss on Zayn that landed on a cut that wasn’t quite scabbed over and so he had to be tested to make sure he hadn’t contracted a horrible infection.

Yeah, the fans think that they are untouchable, that anything they do in their love of the boys is nullified. It’s not. The worst fans are those that love the idea of the boys and forget that the boys are human beings who can feel, do feel. That’s when the fans get scary.

By the looks of it outside, most of these fans are the worst kind, or a few of the worst have infected the majority, mob mentality, and all that. They look crazed, a gleaming glint in their eyes, cameras and iPhones at the ready, ready for a glimpse or a touch of One Direction.

Paul parks behind the security van, which has apparently decided that one entrance, this entrance is somehow better than the other four, even though Liam thinks they all look equally bad.

“It’s going to be rough, boys,” he says, turning around to look all of them in the eye. “I’m not going to lie to you. So--” he breaks off, looking at Niall behind Liam.

“Niall!” Paul barks (only Paul can bark in a way that’s still somehow nice). “Turn the music off.”

Liam turns around to look at Niall, who’s staring determinedly out the window, music still blaring.

He reaches back and yanks the cord of the earbuds, pulling both out of Niall’s ears.

Niall flinches. Liam flinches.

There’s tears in his eyes.

“I don’t want to get out,” he says again, his voice cracking on the out.

The van is silent.

“I’m sorry, Niall, but you have to,” Paul says firmly after an off-beat.

A shuddering inhale--

and then a tear slips down Niall’s face.

“You’ll be alright,” Louis says confidently, as if he actually thinks that, as if any of them think that. There’s a weird look on his face, like he’s trying to express reassurance or comfort or something else but is failing entirely.

Niall’s jaw juts out.

“Why do you care?”

Liam’s eyes feel like a pinball game ball, they bounce back and forth from Louis’ face to Niall’s face so many times.

Wiping half-heartedly at his cheek, Niall sighs and turns off his music when it’s clear Louis’ not going to answer.

Louis has crossed his arms and he looks hurt and for once he’s at a loss for words.

“You two alright?” he asks He cringes as soon as the words leave his mouth. He sounds stupid and naive and hypocritical--he’s well aware he was angry with Louis yesterday for saying the same thing.

Glaring at him, mouth pursed, eyes sunk, Louis just puts on the large dark sunglasses Paul’s passing out.

“--so, as I was saying, it’s not going to be easy. But our team’s going to keep you safe. Don’t talk to anyone, don’t touch anyone, don’t take anything from anyone. Understood?”

They dutifully nod their heads. Liam wants to tell Paul that the security team doesn’t stand a chance against this crowd, that unless Paul’s definition of safe means not seriously injured then no, there’s no way that they’re going to be “kept safe”. He wants to tell him, but he doesn’t.

“The time of your arrival was leaked to the press by someone on our team. We haven’t figured out who it is, and I’m sorry, boys, that it happened,” Paul says sincerely, looking them all in the eye. “But we’ll have to make the best of it, alright?”

Liam doesn’t feel like a person anymore, only a commodity, a thing, to be bought and sold at the highest price. He hasn’t felt like a person in ages, really, but this, this idea that they’ve been reduced to a price tag socks him in the gut.

And how can they make the best of a situation like this?

The car door opens and a heaving blanket of sound whips him in the face. It is so loud and the crowd is pulsing, rippling, swarming, alive as one hungry being, reminding him of that bee documentary he watched in school.

He really does not want to do this.

why is management making them do this why didn’t they block off any sections why couldn’t they have gotten a helicopter why did zayn have to go get beaten up why did harry have to have a mental breakdown why?

Liam shakes his head, trying to stop thinking, trying to shake those awful thoughts right out of his head (it doesn’t work). He’s being selfish and self-centered. It shouldn’t be about him right now.

They get out and Louis’ in back, then it’s Liam, and Niall’s in front of Liam, already leaning into him. It’s going to be awful for Niall, this hundred foot walk to the hospital doors. Awful for all of them, really, but Niall’s the only one who is actually, completely terrified of crowds and of being pressed in and of being trapped.

please niall just be okay please

“Let’s do this, shall we?” Louis mutters into his ear.

Liam’s about to say something but then the security guy at the front is moving and so they have to start going.

The crowd swallows them. Liam is being touched by so many hands, every inch of skin has a fingertip on it, and it’s so loud, the screams (goddammit stop screaming please shut up) and the over here’s and the Liams and the Nialls and the Louis’ and what happened to Harry and is Harry alright and is Zayn dead, that all the vibrations goo up inside his eardrums and there’s this ringing that he heard as he was having the panic attack yesterday and oh god please not now, not another one--

No. He’s okay. He can breathe. He’s okay.

breathe Liam breathe

There go his sunglasses, then, snatched off his face, and now it’s like he’s in the middle of an electrical storm, flashes attacking him from all sides. He’s just glad he’s not crying like Niall probably is.

Niall is a shaking mess, trembling so hard against Liam’s chest that Liam can feel the vibrations under his shirt. It’s never been this bad before--not in New York, not in Paris--and for a moment absolute fury lights his lungs on fire. This is not fair, this is not right.

But Niall’s choked hitch of a breath, a little sob, dims it. This isn’t about him right now.

His arms tighten around Niall protectively. There’s nothing he can really do for him, though. Niall just has to wait it out, somehow, until they reach the doors of the hospital. They look miles and miles away.

Behind him Louis is making catty comments at the fans he sees through the gaps in the security guys as they crawl along at a slug’s pace. Liam can hear it in his voice that he’s angry, and please let this hurry up because when Louis gets angry, really truly angry, he gets mean and violent, and they really don’t need a story in the papers about Louis Tomlinson attacking a fan. Or he’ll get hysterical, that’s always a possibility, because Louis feeds off the emotions surrounding him. They don’t need another nervous breakdown, either.

please let this hurry up

\--oh god and Louis’ tired too, probably didn’t get any sleep last night at all, Louis doesn’t sleep when he’s at any extreme. There’s an explosion just waiting to happen and please let it just happen when they’re inside, not in front of everyone, not in front of cameras and girls with blogs and twitter who will make it go viral in seconds and the media who will speculate, speculate, speculate about where it all went wrong, maybe there’ll even be a gif of Louis losing it, so everyone can watch it again and again and again--

calm down Liam calm down

He’s always been a fretter, hates the word, hates the connotations, but he just is, and his worrying over Niall and Louis and Harry and Zayn is stirring in his stomach, clawing at his stomach, tearing holes in his stomach, until--

no

calm down Liam calm down

He should have asked Paul if they could’ve all be given sedatives before doing this.

Thanks to his from yesterday he was able to sleep, his existence a blissful black nothing for six hours, and his mind was clear back in the van on the ride here. He and Paul agreed that if one of them has to make a statement to the press, it will be him. Louis was asleep, and Niall--

Well, Niall won’t be in the best shape to do anything after making it through the crazy mob, will need quiet and cuddles and time by himself to be okay again. And besides, Louis is too much of a risk to do such a serious thing by himself, because he’s a loose cannon, who knows what he’d end up saying if someone got him mad, so Liam’s the only sensible option--

but please don’t make him do it, he doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to be dangled in front of the press, parroting management, a puppet, all by himself, alone--

He didn’t say that, of course, just nodded when Paul asked him if it was alright in the van.

(now he understands why people have said he’s a pushover, too nice, damn it he deserves not to do this, he’s done so much already, but he can’t get the words out, can’t speak up for himself, can only shake his head yes like a good little boy, good Liam)

They’re moving so incredibly slow and the feeling of hatred for these people, all these people he doesn’t know, overwhelms him for a moment. He wants to scream at them, let them know that if they truly love One Direction then they should leave them alone, and he’s seriously about to do it until he realizes that no one will be able to hear him.

He slumps a little bit in defeat.

That’s when his hold on Niall loosens.

Niall is in his arms. And then he is not. Liam looks dumbly in front of him at the space distinctly unoccupied by Niall and then--

oh god oh god oh god

Niall’s tripped, or something, because he’s on the ground, there must have been too much space between him and the security guy in front of him, just enough space for Niall to fall down--

A loud yelp from Niall, incredibly, impossibly similar to the sound that Liam heard ages ago when the neighbor’s dog got ran over in front of him, and an excited screech from a girl popping back into Liam’s line of vision, a demented Jack-in-the-box, pop goes the weasel, holding something in her fist--

\--it’s Niall’s hair, a chunk of it, and she waves it around like a flag, belching a battle hymn that goes on and on and on until another girl’s eyes lead her fingers to the handful of hair, pulling and pulling, and then the hair bursts like fireworks or maybe snowflakes sprinkling onto the ground and there is a fight that Liam doesn’t see, only hears (you dumb bitch look what you did selfish greedy whore you don’t love him like i do no one could love him like me he’ll never love you after that he’ll never love you because you’re so ugly well you’re fat and ugly why would he love you, slaps and shrieks and hysterical crying), as he bends down and helps Niall up, slips the hood back on, grabs the sunglasses and tries to give them to Niall but fails because Niall’s arms lie limp and still. He has to push Niall to make him start walking again.

you’re alright Niall you’re fine we’re almost there just keep walking i won’t let you fall again i’ve got you you’re alright Niall you’re fine

He says these things, dribbling them in a constant stream into Niall’s right ear, but he can’t make himself believe them.

Louis shouts in his ear, what happened is Niall okay are we going to get out of this alive, and Liam only shrugs. He’s not exactly going to turn around, can’t, really, with Niall’s head tucked into his collarbone.

Should he be glad that the only thing that girl did down there was pull out a fist of Niall’s hair? There’s been this nagging, evil whisper in his head that says one day a fan will do something to them that is so wrong the damage will be irreparable. He’s had nightmares about being kidnapped and held forever, about being taken advantage of by faceless screaming girls chanting his name. It coats him in a layer of aching grime, the guilt, and he hates himself a bit for doubting that the love that the fans have for them is anything but pure.

Niall’s not shaking anymore, is that good or bad? His body against Liam’s is tense, as if all his veins have been filled with sludge and his joints have turned to stone.

ni, he breathes, hold on we’re almost there

And they are, honest.

Shoes scuffing on the pavement, the hospital building getting closer and closer, shuffling along in a louisniall sandwich until the crowd spits them out into the hospital. They’re here. He can breathe.

The doors are pushed shut and locked behind them and for a second Liam wonders for a panicked millisecond if he’s gone deaf, it’s so quiet, but Niall’s choked exhale means he’s not.

He turns around (why would he do that?) and there’s girls pressed up against the glass, pounding on it, crying, kissing the dirty surface, and how can they not realize what they’re doing? They’re wrecking balls, every last one of them, and it baffles Liam, totally baffles him, that they are so oblivious to how incredibly awful they are.

He never wants to see another fangirl again.

Niall relaxes, finally--

No, it’s not relaxing, his knees must’ve buckled under him, Liam’s the only thing holding him up and though Niall isn’t saying anything Liam knows what’s running through his head and that is not in front of them not in front of them anything but in front of them because it’s running through his head too like the scrolling text at the bottom of a news show, endless and he can’t look away.

“Paul,” he says, and there must be an edge of urgency or maybe hysteria in his voice because Paul turns around and sees Niall, sees Liam.

“Niall,” Paul says soothingly, like he’s talking to a small frightened child who’s gotten lost at the supermarket, “can you walk?”

A jerky head shake that Liam feels more than sees, and his heart sinks like something’s gotten a hold of it down in his intestines and is pulling it deeper and deeper can it go down any further?

But Niall apparently can walk because five seconds later he rips himself out of Liam’s arms and runs in that weird way of his to a trash can and heaves once twice three times hanging onto the edge for dear life and nothing comes out which Liam is thankful for because he hates the sound of people vomiting but now the heaving has turned to dry quaking quiet sobs and they have to get him out of here because Niall’s being filmed, little bits of him stolen (don’t they know that he’s not infinite?) and taken away forever to fester on computer screens, soon there’ll be nothing left but an empty shell, a husk, of fake blonde hair and an Irish accent.

Liam looks at Louis, because he’s not sure what to do, and he sees the same look of panic on his face that he’s sure is on his, too.

But then Louis’ lip curls up in determination, a wild gleam in his eyes, and he marches over to the doors, the noise from outside increasing exponentially and he--

\--and he flips all those girls and cameras off, waves both of his middle fingers in their faces.

A surge of warm affection rises up in Liam’s chest and he near aches with the feeling that he loves these boys. Sacrificing himself for Niall, that’s their Lou.

Liam understands what it’s for, a distraction so they can get Niall away before something even worse happens in front of the girls and their cameras. He probably has only seconds, he thinks as he runs to Niall, before Paul makes Louis stop.

A hand on Niall’s trembling shoulder--

“G’off.”

Niall turns around, shrugging off Liam’s hand, and his cheeks are flushed bright pink, the way they get when he’s really upset, but his eyes are dry and his mouth is sewn tight with strong resolve. Liam understands, relief ballooning in his chest. Niall won’t allow himself to fall apart, at least until they’re out of the way of the cameras.

A body is thrown against them and Liam grabs the flailing arm of Louis’ to stable him.

“Look, I know what that was for, Louis,” Paul says, forehead plowed with stress, “and honestly what you did was probably our best option, but just--”

“Yeah yeah, won’t happen again,” Louis drawls. There is a familiar impish glint in his eyes and Liam is so happy to see it back he about cries.

He doesn’t, though.

A nurse materializes next to Paul.

“Alright, lads,” she says cheerily, “you’ll be coming with me.”

She’s got an accent, and though she doesn’t look or sound a thing like his mum, something about her tone painfully reminds of her and suddenly he just wants his mum to be here so badly, because she’d know what to do, she would take care of this, take care of him, and he has to chew on his lip to keep it from trembling.

Paul nods, assuring them that they’re supposed to go with this strange woman, and then disappears, probably to do damage-control on Louis.

The three of them walk behind her through the curiously-empty halls as she tosses them words over her shoulder, small talk about the weather and how it’s nice to hear voices from home.

She talks to them like they’re people, not members of a famous band, and he decides he likes her.

It’s like the hospital is deserted, because there’s not a person in sight, patient or otherwise, and the only sounds he hears are the nurse’s voice and the squeak of Niall’s shoes against the rubber linoleum floor. But he’s paranoid that someone will see them. Paranoia is bubbling in his throat, scurrying down his spine, as he tugs his hood even tighter against the back of his head.

“So did that girl really pull your hair out or did she just cut it?” Louis asks with a weird lilt in his voice that sounds so fake, so flat, so wrong, and Liam knows he’s just trying to break the awful silence but honestly he just wants to smack him round the head because that’s the completely wrong thing to say right now and he wishes Louis had some sort of tact or common sense, really, because Louis knows just as much as Liam does that the girl pulled it out and he’s just saying it to have something to say.

Sure enough Niall stares blankly ahead, then flips the hood of his hoodie over his head. Bye Ni, he wants to say, nice knowing you, because it’ll be awhile before Niall goes back to being Niall and he sort of hates Louis right now for making it worse.

The nurse seems to be unaware of the tension bursting out of all of them, or if she does, she doesn’t act like it, which Liam is so grateful for he wants to hug her.

Picking a random door, she ushers them in. The room’s like a doctor’s office room, with the paper-coated bench and the jar full of cotton balls on top of the counter and the smell of artificial clean that turns his stomach upside down.

It’s so different than the private waiting room they were shoved into yesterday and he wonders why Management’s chosen a room where there’s not even enough chairs for the three of them.

“You alright, Liam?” the nurse asks, dark concern heavy in her eyes as she turns to face them. She puts a hand on his shoulder and he flinches ever so slightly at the touch, as if his shoulder will fall off if one more person, one more stranger, puts their hand on him.

He nods, flushing at the odd glance she gives him. “Think I’ll be, after my pulse goes down.”

It’s true, really, innit? Compared to Niall, who has shrunken into himself, refusing to talk to anyone, and Louis, who is going to get in loads of trouble with management over what he did for Niall, he’s alright. Most definitely alright.

She frowns, and he wonders what he’s done wrong.

“I meant physically. Are you hurt in any way?”

“Right. Sorry,” he mutters into the floor, feeling his cheeks heat up again. “No. I don’t think I’m hurt.”

“You’re bleeding,” Niall says hoarsely, holding up his sleeve. There’s a slash of red painted on the outside of the white fabric.

He can’t be. He’s never bled and not felt anything. Because he doesn’t. Feel anything, really, nothing at all.

He knows his right arm has touched Niall in that spot, at least he thinks so, so he checks his right arm, twists it to see if there’s somehow a place where blood is coming from, but how can blood come from nothing, right? How can there be a wound with no pain?

And then he sees it: four sluggishly bleeding crescent marks hidden on the bottom of his forearm, moon slivers embedded in his skin.

It’s distinctly, definitely from a hand, either from an unthinking girl with incredibly sharp nails or from a determined, insane girl with normal nails desperate for a piece of him to claim. He’s got a battle wound, then. Maybe Management will take a photo of it and sell it to the media, for shock value and to tell the fans to back the hell off.

They all stare at the wound with some sort of morbid fascination, though his is rather detached (is this his arm? is this even him?). He wonders if any of them could look away even if they wanted to.

Then--

“That’s not it,” says Niall in a choked, bleeding tone. His hand juts out and jerkily pushes the hood fully off Liam’s head.

There’s three gasps, all different but somehow the same, somehow telling him that oh god something’s wrong, something’s terribly wrong.

“There,” Niall murmurs, pointing at the left side of his neck.

Liam’s hand gravitates towards something that maybe now he’s realizing is there without him really thinking about it. Then--

His fingers first trail through hot wetness and then they read something like it’s braille, and without really thinking he pulls the something out, spindles of cold fire exploding like sunbeams, and his fingers bring this something around to his face to look at and oh god oh god oh god

It’s a little piece of sharp metal, the end slightly dipped in his blood.

At the top is a little hole and through the hole there is a thin purple ribbon and tied with the ribbon is a folded piece of notebook paper.

His fingers uncrumple it for him. He doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Liam, it reads in a frilly scribble. Call me! XOXO Rachel

A series of numbers that he doesn’t read. A phone number, then.

Distantly he wonders if he should call this girl, Rachel, have her explain what she was thinking when she did this to him, when she was planning this because this was premeditated, this was well thought out with the intention of hurting him, branding him with her filth, tainting him, and is she crazy, does she have a mental disorder, because this is inexcusable, and for once he feels outrage for himself.

“Oh my god,” Louis breathes, his voice laden with horror and disgust, a voice he’s never heard before. Slight fingers brush against his neck as Louis vibrates with outrage for him. “Oh my god.”

“Don’t touch,” warns the nurse, taking the piece of metal from Liam’s limp hand.

He wonders what she will do with it.

In the back of his head is a paranoid stick figure scratching at his brain stem whispering that what if next time he gets actually stabbed what if next time one of the boys gets stabbed what if next time someone does something to really hurt one of them what if next time one of them gets killed and it’s so unimaginable but at the same time he can see it so horrifically clearly in his head and he would like to wake up now please except it’s not a nightmare this is real life even though it’s just in his head.

“Breathe, darling,”

His head snaps up at her words. He tries to breathe.

“It’ll take two seconds to take care of, Liam,” she says, apparently thinking that his near-hyperventilation is from the knowledge that there was a piece of metal sticking into his skin. “Two seconds and you’ll be good as new.”

He dimly wonders if it would be impolite to laugh in her face.

She gestures towards the bench covered with a thin white sheet of paper and Liam hasn’t been on one of these since he was what? seven? and it makes him miss home and the seven-year-old him who thought that these sort of things could be fixed with a lollipop and a kiss from mum.

He gets on it and the paper crinkles and he shifts, uncomfortable. His neck hurts, really badly, as if the pain is racing to catch up with itself after going unnoticed for what must have been ten minutes.

Louis hops up on the bench with him and Niall stands next to Liam touching Liam but not touching Louis like they are the same polarity and it would kill them to share skin cells. He’s going to have to talk to them about what happened between them, he just doesn’t know...how.

A sting of antiseptic, two stitches, one ow two ow all done, a band-aid, Niall’s head turned away because he’s squeamish about the sight and smell of blood but his hand still rooted on Liam’s thigh, Louis’ face gritted with I can’t believe this happened and resting his head on Liam’s left shoulder.

The nurse is a steady stream of words, this won’t even scar it’s not as bad as it looks you won’t feel it in an hour trust me, and all he can think about is another thing to airbrush out if it does scar.

He doesn’t want it to scar because it would be proof that one of their fans is bad, is really bad, and that means there are more out there waiting right now in invisible inevitable crowds existing only in the future, lurking, biding their time before their attack.

His arm is taken care of, next, and he wonders if he’ll have scars there as well. He finds it in his lungs to ask her, as if it actually matters, and she shakes her head and he is unreasonably relieved.

Then the nurse goes to Louis and Niall and Louis’ fine and Niall’s fine except for the long, scabbed-over scratch on his neck he says he got from Harry yesterday and also his nose still hurts (how could Liam forget about that? he totally forgot about Niall’s nose and how could he? he’s a terrible mate and he deserves nothing nothing nothing).

The nurse tsks at him, says you should’ve gotten that taken care of that yesterday but it looks like it’ll be fine except for you’ll have some nasty bruising tomorrow, and then Niall’s squeezing his hand and hissing as she prods at it and Liam sees Louis out of the corner of his eye and are those tears in his eyes? His eyes are glistening and is it because of what happened between them earlier? Or is it because Louis just feels alone? Liam wants answers, feels like he needs answers to breathe. He’s suffocating without them, and it’s like nobody cares.

Paul’s there, then, knocking at the door and making them all freeze like deer in the headlights, and is this their life, now, panicking at every little noise and recoiling from stranger’s touches? he didn’t think that this would be a side-effect of fame and maybe he should write a guide to being slightly famous and one of the chapters can be called ‘even if you think you can’t be changed you will’ or maybe ‘it will break you’.

But it’s only Paul, thank god thank god thank god, and they all deflate a little in mind-numbing relief when the door swings smoothly open and it’s a face they know walking through. Or at least Liam does, but he feels the iron grip Niall has on his hand relax a little and Louis kind of shudders, sort of bows his head and breathes out, an exhale holding much more than carbon dioxide.

Paul’s there, with answers on his tongue in the form of a question, which doesn’t make sense but to Liam it does completely.

“Do you lads want to see Harry?”


	7. Niall // 9:31  AM

**Niall. 9:31** AM  
  
Harry doesn’t want to see them.  
  
And it hurts, honest, though Niall thinks he knows why. He’d be mortified, too, if this had happened to him. The lads have seen each other cry, have seen each other in awkward situations. But nothing--nothing like this. The enormity of it crushes all of them. He understands.  
  
Liam’s making placating little pleas through the door, Harry we want to see you Harry we need to see you Harry please let us in, but the cold pulses of silence coming out under the space between the door and the carpet swallow them whole. His voice catches twice and Niall feels guilty because he saw the look on Liam’s face when they got inside after going through the crowd and he knows that it’s his fault Liam looked so unbearably upset, his fault, again. Harry just open the door we want to know you’re alright, please Harry please--  
  
\--it’s obviously not the right thing to be saying to Harry but what else are they supposed to say?  
  
Louis--Louis should be more help than he is right now. He always knows what to say when it comes to Harry, his Hazza. But not--but not this Harry, maybe. Because Louis’ quiet, staring off into space with empty eyes like something will come swoop in and rescue him, take him away to some place, some alternate universe, where things are still right.  
  
Niall wishes he could say something to make things right. He wishes it so badly his chest hurts. But his fingers are better talkers than his mouth is, and he can’t exactly hug Harry though two inches of wood. There’s an empty space on his shoulder where he knows the side of Harry’s head should be going right now, and he knows it’s nothing, and nothing shouldn’t be able to hurt, but it does.  
  
Zayn would know how to fix this. He’s fixed a lot, nothing as big as this, nothing near it, but he’s good at saying and doing things to make everything better. They don’t know if he’s even capable of knowing anything right now, though. And it’s kind of funny to Niall that the one person who could do something has fallen, too.  
  
It’s not funny at all, actually. But Niall still kind of laughs.  
  
They turn to Paul, and the lines are back in his forehead.  
  
“He was okay with seeing you five minutes ago,” Paul says, shaking his head.  
  
Out of the corner of his eye Niall sees Louis scrunch his face up and sink into himself. Niall knows Louis will take this personally because Louis takes everything personally. Liam just looks defeated and like he’s about to cry and there’s a prickling in Niall’s stomach because he doesn’t want Liam to start crying because Liam’s the strong one and if Liam can’t hold himself together then what hope does Niall have?  
  
None at all, that’s what.  
  
Niall wonders what now? and it feels like he’s in a state of purgatory.  
  
“Zayn,” Louis says. “Can we see Zayn, then?”  
  
The air sucks out of the room.  
  
Paul opens his mouth and closes his mouth and bows then shakes his head a bit and rationally Niall knows that if Zayn had died they would’ve been told about it but fear that Zayn has died is hacking at his chest, ripping holes in his lungs, and he is in a state of not-breathing until Paul sighs and says that he’s not able to tell them anything about Zayn right now.  
  
It’s good enough for Niall and he has to fight down the inappropriate smile thats threatening to bloom on his face because Zayn’s not dead, he’s alright, then, and that’s amazing, and now he can breathe, and things have moved an inch into okayness.  
  
“Tell us something damn it!” Liam roars suddenly, his jaw clenched and his hands in fists as if he will fight Paul, force his way into his brain and reach down into a sulcus and grab the information that he wants.  
  
Paul sighs again.  
  
“Look, lads, I’m not legally allowed to give anything out--”  
  
Liam steps forward towards Paul, and Louis reaches out an arm across his chest, says no Liam calm down Liam.  
  
Then there’s tears in Liam’s eyes and his shoulders collapse and he stumbles back and slumps into the chair behind him.  
  
“I just need to know something, we haven’t been told anything Paul did you know that? you’re suffocating us you’re suffocating me and please just give me something, anything--”  
  
Niall feels like he is choking on Liam’s words, they’re stuck in his throat, and his eyes meet Paul’s and Paul looks just as frozen as Niall feels and then Paul’s jaw juts with determination and Niall knows that Paul is going to tell them something and he wants to lunge at Paul, say no don’t tell me I don’t want it please be quiet shut your mouth keep it inside yourself don’t spread it to me--  
  
“Early this morning Zayn was attacked. The police haven’t told us what they’ve seen in the security camera footage, and there were no witnesses as far as they know. He came in in pretty bad shape--I’m not going to lie to you lads. He’s recovering from emergency surgery now in the intensive care unit, so no, none of you can see him. That’s about as much as I know.”  
  
Niall didn’t want to know any of that, none of it at all, and Liam’s looking stunned and his eyes are open wide like the knowledge has stretched his irises.  
  
Louis wants more, that greedy bastard.  
  
“What happened after he was attacked?” he demands, and Niall wants to shake him, say why are you doing this to us, making Paul tell us this horror story, and Niall wants to stuff his sleeve down Louis’ throat, and Niall just wants to leave, but he does none of it.  
  
A beat of silence. Paul’s jaw clenches.  
  
“A pap found him while she was searching for where you were staying last night and called an ambulance,” he says.  
  
oh god oh god oh god no no NO  
  
That means there’ll be pictures of Zayn, pictures of him hurt and helpless and on the verge of fucking death and that will kill Zayn, that will devastate him--  
  
Niall’s breath catches in his throat with a muffled rasp, and then his next breath does it again except louder, and then Niall can hardly breathe at all, and then Louis’ there, an arm curling around his shoulders and reeling him in, and then Niall rests his forehead into Louis’ neck and tries his hardest to not fall totally apart.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Louis whispers into Niall’s ear, his voice taunt with emotion. “I’m so sorry, Ni, didn’t mean any of it, what I said before. You know that, right?”  
  
Niall only manages to shakily nod his head because the relief that Louis isn’t angry with him anymore is overwhelming and he knows he is on the verge of sobbing and he just swallows swallows swallows it down because he’s done enough of that.  
  
“She did take pictures, and lads I swear we tried our best to buy them from her, but she wouldn’t sell to us,” Paul says, and his words are dipped in biting quiet fury.  
  
Louis swears lowly, an ugly, black monster coming out from under his tongue that slithers into Niall’s ears and curls against his brainstem. He could feel it, too, feel the vibrations swooping through Louis’ throat, and he never thought things like vibrations could feel scary but these do, these have an awful, mean coat of anger, and Niall hopes to god that Louis doesn’t find out the name of that pap because he honestly doesn’t know what Louis could be capable of when he is this angry.  
  
“I’m hoping there’ll be public pressure for her to not sell or for the papers not to publish, but...” Paul trails off.  
   
There is a blur, and then a fist through the wall, and Liam’s hoarsely breathing, or maybe sobbing (at this point Niall doesn’t think he could ever tell the difference again).  
Liam curls himself around his hand, tucked into the middle of his chest.  
  
what  
  
the  
  
hell  
  
is  
  
happening  
  
Niall doesn’t know what to do. He’s never seen Liam like this, never seen him lose control like that, never seen him deliberately hurt himself like that because maybe he was just angry but kicking a chair or something would have hurt a lot less and so maybe he wanted to hurt, maybe they all want to hurt so they can feel like Harry.  
  
Are you alright, Paul says, did you hurt yourself, and Niall wants to scream at him, Paul are you blind, are you stupid, Liam’s not alright, he’s bleeding, because he is, there are bloodstains dotted on his white t-shirt, and he’s hissing quietly, but when Liam answers it’s to say yes he’s alright, yes he’s fine, and Paul’s opening his mouth, hopefully to tell Liam to come with him back to the nurse, but then Harry’s door opens and--  
  
A glimpse of curls, a you can come in if you want, footsteps shuffling away--  
  
Niall can’t breathe.  
  
Liam’s stopped hissing, and his hands are hanging loosely, and Louis asks Paul if they can and his voice has so much hope and so much horror and so much paradox that Niall doesn’t know what to think, what to expect from Louis anymore because he doesn’t understand him.  
  
Paul just nods, says go on in, I’ll give you lads some space, and suddenly Niall doesn’t want to go in, because what will they find? he honestly can’t imagine anything and that scares him, terrifies him, and he wonders if the boys would hate him if he turned around and walked away.  
  
But no, he doesn’t, because the three of them are walking to the door and pushing the door open and looking inside and walking inside and then they see Harry and Harry is--  
  
Harry is a tiny ball of pointy elbows and messy curls and bony shoulders that are slightly trembling, a tiny ball hunched over on the side of the hospital bed.  
  
It is somehow worse and somehow better than what Niall was expecting.  
  
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I fucked everything up for us. I’m sorry,” Harry says, his face burrowed in his knees. His voice is muffled and cowed and he says sorry like it stabs him in the gut and he says sorry like he wants to be hurt.  
  
“Hazza--”  
  
At the nickname a broken quiet sob flies out of Harry’s mouth and spits in all of their ears.  
  
Louis looks like he wants to crawl into Harry’s eardrums and peel the h and a and z and z and a away, take them back, because they thought they were horrified at seeing Harry like he was yesterday but somehow this is more awful than that, infinitely more awful than that, and Niall feels like he’s watching a car accident in slow motion.  
  
“I know I fucked up but please don’t hate me, _please_ \--” his voice breaks off and snaps them all in two.  
  
oh god Harry  
  
Louis very carefully sits down and positions himself next to Harry, not quite touching him because Harry looks like he’ll shatter with a fingertip. Harry’s shoulders stiffen and his whole body visibly tenses and why is he acting like this?  
  
“Harry, how could we possibly hate you?” Louis murmurs, his hand wavering awkwardly in the air above Harry’s arm.  
  
“You should,” Harry whispers. His shoulders are shaking again.  
  
“Harry,” Liam says sternly and suddenly and loudly and it makes Harry pull his head out from in between his knees and look up and it makes the rest of them wish he hadn’t.  
  
Harry’s cheeks are stained with tears and scabbed over gashes and his bottom lip looks like a piece of raw meat and he doesn’t look any of them in the eye but Niall almost drowns in the sadness he can see in Harry’s eyes as they look blankly at the wall.  
  
who is this person?  
  
His head swivels, barely noticeable, and then there’s this look of complete dejection and hurt and it’s only there for a second before it slips away but Niall sees it.  
  
“Where’s Zayn?” Harry asks, and it socks Niall in the throat because it was such an unexpected question and who the hell knows how they are supposed to answer but also because it’s painfully, achingly obvious that Harry thinks that Zayn doesn’t want to see him and that kind of grabs his heart and rips it out of his chest because Harry.  
  
None of them apparently want to tell him, but the few seconds of silent hesitation makes Harry crumble into his shoulders and collapse back down into himself.  
  
“Tell him--tell him that I’m sorry, okay?” Harry asks.  
  
Niall is stunned and Liam looks stunned and Louis looks like Harry’s just slapped him in the face.  
  
“Sorry for what, Harry?” Liam asks, looking like the question has crawled out of his throat of its own accord.  
  
Harry shrugs his shoulders.  
  
“It’s not that hard to figure out,” he mumbles into his knees. “Just tell him, please.”  
  
Louis’ mouth grits up.  
  
“Okay, this is ridiculous, Harry,” he says. “If Zayn could be here he would be here. But he can’t, alright. He can’t.”  
  
Harry looks up again, and his face is a mess of confusion and worry and dull green eyes and still that sadness, that aching sadness that Niall is hit in the face with in waves.  
  
“What do you mean?” he asks slowly.  
  
Louis and Liam look at each other and then they both look at Niall and he shakes his head no, a quick quiet jerky please don’t make me, and thank god thank god thank god Liam’s opening his mouth.  
  
“Zayn went out last night--early this morning, actually--and he got, um, attacked,” Liam says, running a hand through his hair. “He just got out of surgery, so they wouldn’t let him come.”  
  
The joke falls flat, terribly flat (was it even a joke? Niall doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to find things funny again) and Harry goes pale and Louis slaps Liam on the arm, hissing good job mate that went swimmingly as Harry burrows himself in his knees for the twentieth time.  
  
“My fault,” he whispers. “It’s my fault.”  
  
It kind of is, to be honest. Just barely, just an indirect consequence, but Niall knows that Harry will buckle under the guilt, fold like a broken accordion, because Harry knows Zayn, knows as well as any of them do that when Bad Things happen Zayn needs to get smashed, and that would be the only reason he’d leave them, to go to buy alcohol.  
  
Liam rubs the spot where Louis hit him, wincing slightly and mumbling “like you could’ve done better.”  
  
Niall agrees with Liam but he knows that when Liam and Louis bicker it’s best not to even acknowledge it and besides there’s Harry and that’s--he’s--more important than whatever Niall could say.  
  
His stomach growls again and he’s reminded that for the first time ever he’s not eaten in over a day and yeah he’s feeling a bit lightheaded and yeah right now he’s actually hungry, somehow, and yeah there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for a sandwich but--  
  
Not. Important.  
  
Louis’ hand finally decides to touch Harry and it lands in his curls, curling around his neck, and then Louis’ pulling Harry gently, tugging Harry into his shoulder, stroking his hair, whispering it’s not your fault it’s not your fault it’s not your fault into Harry’s ear, hoping it won’t dribble out.  
  
Harry takes a shaky breath. They all do.  
  
“Do you think he’ll hate me?” Harry asks quietly and dully and like whoever answers won’t make him think any differently and why is he even asking that if it won’t change his mind? no no no no no Zayn’ll never hate you, none of us could ever hate you, that’s what Niall wants to say, wants to beat into Harry’s head, engrave it on his frontal lobe.  
  
Liam echos Niall out loud, and Harry cringes, almost flinches at the n and the o repeated. It’s weird and it’s strange and it’s Not Harry, and Niall just wants his Harry back. He doesn’t exactly know when he disappeared but it’s so obvious, so achingly obvious that Harry’s gone now and has left this stranger in their arms who they don’t know how to deal with or what to say to and Niall feels the injustice of it all curdle in his stomach but he says nothing, does nothing, just lets it fester because that’s what he does best.  
  
Then there’s a knock at the door and it peeks open and Paul’s voice comes through, saying I’ll give you five more minutes then I’ll come in, but Niall doesn’t even listen to what Paul says after that or notice when the door closes again because Harry sits up straight for the first time since they’ve come in and his collarbones leap out of his skin and stab Niall in the chest because he looks emaciated, he looks sick, and for the first time since it happened Niall wonders if there’s actually something physically wrong with Harry along with the mental stuff and that really freaks him the hell out because what if it’s something Harry could die from? what if he’s dying right now? dying right in front of them?  
  
he has to know he has to know now  
  
“What’s wrong with you?” he blurs out and three heads whip towards him, staring, six eyes bulging, and oops maybe he shouldn’t have said that but he has to know and so he asks it again, what’s wrong with you Harry? and he hopes that the urgency bubbling up in his throat is conveyed because goddammit he needs to know this, needs to know that Harry isn’t going to die, because that would be--  
  
that would be--  
  
Niall, hisses Louis, shut up  
  
\--and Niall looks at Louis and then he looks at Harry and Harry is perfectly still except for his lower lip which is quivering and other than that he is a statue--  
  
no not a statue  
  
statues don’t cry  
  
jesus christ he’s an idiot  
  
a selfish fucking idiot  
  
“I didn’t--I didn’t mean--” Niall stammers, trying to tell them that he just wanted to find out if Harry’s dying, and shouldn’t they all want to know if Harry’s going to be alright? if Harry is dying? but he can’t get the words out and they’re not listening anyway and Harry’s chest is an earthquake and oh god what has he done?  
  
Niall wants to take it back, suck his question back into his mouth, but he knows he can’t and so the only thing he does is watch as Liam rubs Harry’s back with his good hand and Louis pets Harry’s hair and as they both give him dirty looks and Niall supposes he should be grateful that they’re looking at him at all and now he doesn’t know what to do should he apologize for asking that but he still wants to know, still desperately, unbearably needs to know, and so some part of him really really wants to ask again but he knows he shouldn’t, knows he can’t and now it’s sneaking into his head that maybe Liam and Louis and Harry will hate him now, hate him for asking that, and then he’ll  only have Zayn but what if Zayn dies or something and then he’ll have no one, he’ll be all alone--  
  
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Niall,” Niall hears Louis mutter, sees him untangle himself from Harry out of the corner of his eye because he’s staring at the floor because that’s all he is able to do, really, because he can’t get enough air all of the sudden and rationally he knows he’s not going to die but he just can’t stop feeling like it, can’t stop thinking about how everyone hates him and how he’s going to be alone and how that would be worse than death, and then Louis is holding something and then there is a blanket of needle-y ice water thrown on his face and chest and he sputters and sputters but he can breathe again, finally, and he wipes at his face and takes off his sopping wet shirt and wrings it out and puts it back on and hopes the boys don’t see him cry.  
  
Niall looks up as Louis goes back to Harry and then he sees Liam and it stabs him in the gut. Liam’s almost glaring at him with a stern look on his face, like he’s done something wrong, and what did he do?  
  
It’s not about you right now, Liam mouths to Niall, and shards of glass trickle down his esophagus because he knows it’s not about him right now but still he’s allowed to feel right? he’s just as important as Harry, that’s what he’s had to tell himself over the past two years, he’s worth just as much, he’s important, too, he is he is he is--  
  
\--but he isn’t, honestly, obviously, everyone knows that, Liam knows that, Niall knows it more than anyone, and he should go sit in the corner or just leave because he’s useless here, he’s useless everywhere, all he’s doing is making it worse, like everything else he’s done--  
  
stop  
  
please just stop he begs himself  
  
Niall takes a deep breath and looks across at Harry. He’s curled up on the hospital bed, leaning against Louis like he’s the only thing tethering him to this world, eyes halfway closed as Liam talks softly at him, to him, at him, to him, Niall can’t tell (because there is a difference, there’s a huge difference).  
  
He feels like an outsider, a stranger, and he wants to help Harry, wants to go over there and make it all better, but he doesn’t know how and besides Liam hates him and Louis is getting sick of him, it’s obvious, and Harry hasn’t even acknowledged his existence--  
  
\--wait, that means that Harry’s furious at him, or doesn’t even care about him at all, that’s even worse, and it feels like he’s losing everything at once and then he feels the burning onset of tears and he knows he can’t stop them but he knows he can’t cry in front of the boys because they’ll think that he’s making it all about him again and no he doesn’t want that to happen again but also he still wants answers, needs to know if Harry’s dying, needs to know if he’ll be alright, he needs answers more than he needs air.  
  
The question circles his lips and begs to come out and it’s about to be asked even if Niall doesn’t want it to be so he can only think of one thing he can do that won’t ruin everything and then he does it.  
  
He walks out.  
  
He doesn’t look back.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please give your feedback! I'd really like to know whether this is complete shit or not.


	8. Zayn // 3:33 PM

**Zayn. 3:33 PM**  
  
Who did this to you  
  
What happened to you  
  
Why aren’t you telling us  
  
Why won’t you talk to us  
  
Zayn’s ears are filled to the brim with these questions, his eardrums are sopping, and if he was able to use his voice he would tell the police and the investigators and Paul and the doctors to all kindly fuck themselves, because he’s recovering from fucking surgery damn it, they’re not entitled to anything, he doesn’t owe them anything, the miserable twats--  
  
but he’s not able to use his voice because--  
  
because the words won’t come out  
  
because he can’t force any noise out  
  
because fuck it all to hell every time he thinks about what happened to him and what almost happened to him he wants to die--not really die, he doesn’t feel like he did when he was lying half-dead already on the pavement--but he wants to keel over because it’s so mortifying and the idea of trying to explain that, to let someone know what happened twists his gut and shoves scissors down his throat so when the police and the investigators and Paul and the doctors ask him he stays silent instead, stares straight ahead, chews his tongue to pieces, strangles his thin blanket in between his fingers, envisions each of their heads up on his wall.  
  
And he’s not the sort of person to do anything half-arsed, so he doesn’t say anything at all, nothing, absolutely nothing, sews his face shut because if he’s being truly honest he knows that if he opens his mouth it’ll all fly out and he’ll start crying--fucking hell, he’s pathetic--and rationally he knows that crying is just another emotion and it’s natural and he’s a human being, he’s allowed to cry, and he knows that no one’ll judge him because what he went through was fucking awful, but he doesn’t want to cry in front of strangers and especially not in front of Paul and like maybe if one of the lads was here he’d talk to them and get it all out but he can’t exactly ask for one of them to come here so he stews in his own sadness alone and silent and it is not fun  
  
and also he’s in a lot of pain, yeah he’s on some kind of pain medication but he’s been awake for like six hours and his torso where they removed the shard of his broken rib that had lodged itself somewhere it shouldn’t have been is throbbing and pain is crawling up his spine incessantly and that is not fun also  
  
also there’s worry about Harry pressing with burning fists against the back of his eyeballs and he desperately wants to know how Harry is but he can’t ask for that either and so he’s slowly suffocating because in the deepest pit of his mind he thinks that maybe Harry will definitely not be okay and he really just needs to know something but every time a nurse comes over and ask if he needs anything he pretends that he can’t hear her and now there’s clouds of words, psychologist counselor post traumatic stress disorder there is something wrong with zayn, floating around him and into him and tearing holes into his chest.  
  
i’m fine, he wants to tell them, somehow express to them, even though he’s not, he’s most definitely not, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be again--  
  
He’s also cold, and it’s the kind of cold that scratches at his bones, and it’s the kind of cold that even if he was talking and even if he was able to ask for a thousand blankets he’d never be warm again.  
  
Just to be left alone would be nice, might make things more bearable, and that’s what he’s holding on to, that idea that when he is finally alone he will magically feel better, because he needs _something_ right now in order to not go crazy.  
  
There’s a knock at the door, and the room is draped in the future, another faceless man with poorly hidden apathy for him cloaked in pity and sympathy, we’re here to help you zayn you just need to tell us what happened we’ll make sure they won’t hurt you again, like he’s a fucking _child_ , _fuck_ them and their stupid questions, it’s not like he could tell them much anyway, blank shadowy faces and terrifying eyes aren’t much to go off of, but even then he’d have to tell them what was in those eyes, and then he’d have to say that he was almost--  
  
No.  
  
It’s not going to happen. He would rather be silent his entire life than say that. He will take it to his grave, and no one will ever know about the stench of dank black liquor breath hissing against his neck or needle-y eyelashes stabbing at his cheek or a rough hand at his lips (let me in let me in) or a snarling whisper forced into him or anything else he’s been remembering. No one will know. He will lock it inside himself and swallow the key (but it’s eating away at him it is clogging his veins it is clawing at his eye sockets and he is not sure if letting it out would kill it or just release it and make everything worse, if that would even be possible).  
  
The door opens slowly, not with a purpose and not with demands and judgements weaved into the wood, and so maybe it’s not a doctor or a nurse or a psychologist or a therapist or an investigator or a policeman, maybe it’s--  
  
yeah, it’s one of the lads, and it’s Niall and--  
  
(oh no)  
  
\--and he’s drooping with sadness, shoulders collapsing, looking incredibly young and vulnerable because his hair’s matted down, and for a moment when he sees Zayn looking at him he looks like he’s about to start bawling, knees collapsing, but no, the moment passes and he swallows himself down, like he always does, and damn it Niall you’re important too, you’re allowed to feel when others are hurting--  
  
Zayn forgets somehow about what happened to him for a second (impossible, though--it’s been impossible since that horrible, brain flattening, heart crunching second when his memories were heaped back onto him right after he opened his eyes all woozy and saw a nurse leaning over him, somehow thinking blonde curls and pick lipstick was the same as eyes gleaming with hatred and sadism and want, the feel of rough stubble against his cheek, and having to be held down because he freaked out so badly) when he gets a good look at Niall’s face.  
  
He is a bruise, all purple, purple nose and purple bags under his eyes, he looks as if he hasn’t slept in weeks, and his nose is swollen and Zayn suddenly is clawed in the face because he suddenly remembers the reason for that, _Zayn did that to him,_ Zayn _attacked_ him, and it’s hardly better than what that mob did to him, innit? and that means Zayn’s a _monster_ , he _deserved_ to be hurt like this, it’s karma, and he’s so so sorry, Niall but he can’t say that.  
  
But there’s no hate or angry or resentment in Niall’s face, only a deep lukewarm sadness and what seems to be jagged pulses of hurt.   
  
“Hi,” Niall murmurs, barely more than a whisper, and Zayn lifts his hand to fan over a weak wave, because it’s all he’s able to do, and he feels fucking weak because Niall obviously needs more than just a wave but Zayn can’t give that to him now, he can’t tell him he’s worth something, worth everything, because his throat is stuffed with raging embarrassment and he just got out of fucking surgery, he can’t even breathe without it hurting, and he just can’t do _anything_ , and that’s killing him, he hates this, hates himself, too--  
  
Niall droops even more, Zayn didn’t even think that was possible, and slows to a stop, just staring at Zayn, hands hanging loosely with shoulders hunched over, like it’s too hard for him to think about good posture.   
  
Zayn opens his mouth without thinking, because he has to do something, something to stop Niall from sinking into his tar pit of misery that swallows him whole and vomits him back up, and he says--  
  
“they said I was the color of shit,” he breathes into the air, a tiny black vocalized thought bubble, “but I guess I should be grateful that they hated me because else they were going to--”  
  
he vaguely realizes that his voice is tinged with hysteria and when he stops himself, heaping the words lying on his tongue back past his vocal chords, he wants to smack himself, because he _knew_ that this was going to happen, that if he tried to talk about anything instead the whole story would just slide out, and he just is kind of glad he stopped himself before he said what really matters, because that’s the worst bit, it’s what’s destroying him, and--  
  
“...what?” Niall asks, a quiver in his voice, he probably thinks Zayn’s gone raving mad, but Zayn’s not going to answer him, he’s not, he can’t--  
  
Zayn closes his eyes and turns his head away from Niall.   
  
he’s so sorry  
  
“Zayn, what?’ Niall asks again, horror and dawning realization scribbled along the letters, and Zayn’s answer is the cold, sharp edge of silence (im sorry im sorry i cant i cant). He wonders if it will slice Niall’s throat open.   
  
It is a minute or a second or an eternity before there is a choked, muffled sob--he is a monster--and shuffling footsteps and a click of the door and Zayn is alone and Zayn is lonely but at least he is safe--  
  
but no.  
  
he is not.  
  
A woman rushes into the room and shoves her badge and a little black recorder into his face and asks him, breathlessly, ears pricked, eyes glistening with the thrill of the hunt, can you repeat that Mr. malLEEK say that again we need to get a statement, and her mispronunciation of his name somehow is so ridiculously annoying that he interrupts her, shut up shut up shut UP, and he turns his head again and puts his hands up to his ears and refuses to acknowledge her existence, and after a few minutes she sighs and leaves, and then he takes his hands away and so then he can hear an argument outside the room, cause she didn’t close the door all the way, and he hears his name and he hears psychologist--  
  
\--no, he is not going to talk to one, he is not going to have words fished out of his mouth and put together in a completely different way, he is not going to be fucked with, he is not going to have a stranger dig around in his brain, screw everything up, he (thinks he) knows what happens, and NO it is not going to happen to him.  
  
even if maybe it could help  
  
because oh _god_ his whole body is churning with horror and fear and humiliation  
  
and he also knows he’s never going outside again, ever  
  
which is a problem, definitely a problem  
  
and he just wants to smoke a whole pack of cigs, one after the other, and get totally wasted except he doesn’t know what he’d say if he was totally wasted, what he’d reveal, actually he probably wouldn’t say anything, just cry, long, endless, pathetic weeping, except he knows he won’t even be able to get totally wasted for a long time because hell he’s just gotten out of fucking surgery and he’s on pain medicine and that’s the first rule of anything, don’t mix alcohol and medication, and that’s the only thing he knows for sure right now.  
  
So even if talking to someone could help he’s not going to do it because he’d rather be a cowering mess with what happened locked inside him than a cowering, blubbering mess with what happened outside of him, with everyone knowing and _fuck_ if everyone knew, if everyone had even a semblance of an idea, he’d just die right there, hope the floor would swallow him up and never let him go--  
  
he’s a mess already and he feels like his whole body is taunt with the memories that just won’t leave him the fuck alone, he feels like screaming, and is this what Harry felt like?   
  
_fuck_  
  
what if this happened to harry what if the _real_ thing happened to him fuck fuck fuck that would explain _everything_ \--  
  
oh god but how is he supposed to ask him that? like Zayn’s never going to talk again and besides for all he knows Harry’s curled up in a straightjacket in a padded room and he couldn’t talk to him anyway.  
  
but what if Zayn could like...do something to help him? what if Zayn could finally do something that could make things better? because all he’s done in the past day is fuck things up so it would be nice to do something good for Harry but what if Harry freaks out when he asks him, that wouldn’t be good either, and so--  
  
“Honey, you’ve got to calm down,” says someone next to his ear, and oh god oh god oh god it’s the guy from this morning, oh god oh god oh god he’s back and he’s going to do it for real--there’s a high pitched keening sound, and he dimly realizes that it’s him, and he’s dimly realizing that he’s thrashing wildly, trying to get away get away, he won’t let it happen this time--except  
  
\--except it’s not, it’s the blonde curls pink lipstick nurse, and his stomach explodes in embarrassment, he can’t believe he just _did_ that, but he really thought it was the guy, he did he did he did, kind of still thinks it is even though she’s right there, grabbing at his wrists, ordering him to calm down and calling for more nurses, and his veins are still filled with adrenaline, he’s breathing so fast he’s afraid he’ll tear his stitches out, he probably has though already because his whole chest is hurting so badly there are tears running down his cheeks except maybe they’re not from just that, christ he can’t breathe  
  
just fucking leave him alone, he wants to scream, stop crowding him, because they’re swarming into the room and grabbing onto him and he knows rationally that this isn’t the same fucking thing but it feels like it, feels like he’s going to be attacked, and he’s flinching every time someone’s hand gets near him and fuck it he’s still crying, gulping chunks of air down because he can’t get enough, he’s never cried like this before, what is happening to him--  
  
give him some space, guys, someone says, and thank you thank you thank you he wants to say because they fucking listen, and they move a bit away from him, their hands are not touching him anymore, and the hoarse buzzing in his ears goes away and so he can hear them talking about him as he collapses back down onto his pillow, hands gripped into fists because they’re shaking so badly, and then he hears it, rape and kit put together in the same sentence, one right after the other, and--  
  
“NO!” he yells, much louder than he intended it to be but it works because they all stop talking and look at him. “I don’t--I don’t need that. I wasn’t--” he can’t finish the rest of the sentence and  fuck he hopes they understand.  
  
He swallows, because they’re looking at him expectantly, and this is like blackmail, but then one lady yells at everyone to get out and they do and then it’s only her looking at him expectantly, hi i’m doctor flynn she says, i’m the hospital psychologist, you’re going to need to tell me more than that okay zayn, can you do that for me?   
  
No it’s not okay and no he doesn’t want to do that for her but still he bites back the fuck you wrapped against his teeth and nods, okay, he’ll do it.  
  
“almost--they were going to--he said they were, but i’m the color of shit,” Zayn says, his voice breaking on the shit, “ and i was too dirty for them to do that, so it’s fucked up okay, i’m fucked up now, and--”  
  
he can’t meet her eyes, so he stares at a spot on the wall, hopes that’s good enough, blinks away what he can, wipes away the rest, feeling like he’s said too much but feeling like he’s explained nothing at all.  
  
“Would you be okay with me asking another question, Zayn?”  
  
No. He nods. There is nothing else for him to do.  
  
“Are you up to giving a statement and answering a few questions for the investigators?” she asks. “We’ll talk more afterwards, if that’s alright with you.”  
  
He hates her. He doesn’t know why, but he hates her. And he wants to say no, just so she’ll leave and let him be alone, that’s all he wants, but he knows he has to say yes because he wants to get it over with, honestly.  
  
yeah i’ll do it, he whispers, as a nurse, not blonde curls pink lipstick this time, smelling like cold cheap coffee and expensive perfume, to check his stitches and dressings, and he forces himself to lie still even though every cell of his body is screaming get away get away get away and there is skittering fear bulging in his throat and he closes his eyes so tightly there is are grey pounding puffs scribbled on to the back of his eyelids and it hurts and everything hurts.  
  
but then she says good job, all done, and he wants to scream at her, i’m not five woman treat me like an adult, because that’s really bothering him even though he doesn’t know why. She leaves and then two guys in black horribly-fitting suits come in and stand over him and they’re really fucking intimidating and suddenly he doesn’t think he can answer their questions anymore but it’s too late, they’re already asking them, do you remember what happened (yes) can you tell us what happened (i went out for a walk and then this group of guys came up and started harrassing me and then they saw that i wasn’t white and then they attacked me and um afterwards one of the guys--one of the guys--he--he) zayn he what (--he said that they were going to make me their, their, their--)  
  
Zayn stops himself, no this is too hard he’s not going to do it, and he sews his mouth shut and breathes through his nose but the problem is that he’s freaking out a bit and so he’s breathing hard and through his nose he can’t bring enough air into his lungs and it makes an awful wheezing noise, and--  
  
Paul comes in, then, says that’s enough you’ll get your answers later, thank god for Paul, and when they leave he lets his mouth open a little and then he’s gasping, hoarse, grating gulps of air,  he can’t get enough in even with his mouth open, but suddenly Louis and Liam and Niall are there, Louis and Liam on one side of him and Niall on the other, identical expressions of shit shit shit on their faces, and he tries to calm down for them, they’ve got enough to worry about, they’ve got Harry to worry about, he doesn’t need to make things worse, and he’s trying so fucking hard, so fucking hard okay--  
  
And he does it, he finally does it, incredibly, he slows his breathing down to somewhat normal and he feels marginally better but the lads are looking at him expectantly or maybe that’s just horror on their faces, he imagines he looks right awful right now, red eyes matted hair shaking hands lips ground into raw flesh,   
  
It’s Liam who talks first, crouches down next to Zayn’s face.   
  
“I’m glad you’re alright, Zayn,” he says, voice slightly wavering like he can’t believe it’s true, that Zayn is here and Zayn is alive and Zayn is breathing, or maybe his voice is wavering because it’s not true, Zayn is obviously and most definitely not alright, and Zayn doesn’t know which is right, he doesn’t know anything, really, and that reminds him of Harry.  
  
“Do--” he pauses, licking his lips because they’re so dry, “do you know if Harry’s alright?”   
  
He can tell from the tiny flinches on all of their faces that no, Harry’s not alright, and he doesn’t want to know, knowing might snap him in two, but at the same time he’s been without knowing anything since it happened and that hasn’t exactly been the best either.  
  
And he wonders what has happened to Liam and Louis and Niall in the small infinity that has passed since he went out this morning. Liam looks gut-wrenchingly guilty and Louis looks bone-tired, defeat written across his throat, and Niall looks the same, he’s twisted away from Liam and Louis like he thinks they are going to rage at him if he gets a centimeter too close, he’s like a kicked dog, and something’s up because they can all tell when Niall gets in one of these horrible moods and usually Louis knows first, Louis would make things better, but he isn’t even looking at Niall, doesn’t even look like he cares about Niall in this second, and fuck, Lou, just because Harry’s a mess and Zayn’s a mess doesn’t mean that Niall doesn’t matter, doesn’t mean that he doesn’t deserve everything.  
  
“Harry’s...better than he was,” Louis says, looking like he doesn’t believe it for a second, but Zayn decides to let it go because there’s no use mucking around in something he doesn’t really want to know after all, now that he really thinks about it clearly, he’ll just pretend like he believes Lou, believes that Harry’s better or even able to become better in the distant future, so he nods his head and closes his eyes and tries to relax his face, putting on an act because they don’t need to worry about him too right now, and he knows he’ll never tell them about what happened, he’ll say he can’t remember anything, say to the investigators that he was just making things up, for publicity, right? that’s believable, and fuck there’ll probably be consequences of making things up to the police but he doesn’t fucking care, he just wants this to be over as soon as possible and maybe pretending it never happened is the best way for it to be over.  
  
and he loves Niall, really does, but if he brings up what Zayn accidentally slipped out of his mouth, Zayn’ll kill him, he will, he will he will--  
  
oh god he doesn’t know himself anymore, the zayn he thought he was doesn’t exist anymore, there is just a line drawn in the sand between old zayn and this zayn with horrific secrets lining his teeth, just a line but it seems like oceans or a few eternities, and even though he’s not alone anymore, he still feels lonely and fucking hell he just wants everything to go back to the way it was, he wants to go back to the way he was, and suddenly he can’t take the awkward silence or the concerned looks attacking him or niall’s hoarse breathing like he’s on the brink of tears  
  
“I’m tired,” Zayn says, hoping it’s enough. “Could you lads get out?”   
  
He doesn’t mean it that way (of course he does) but his words don’t go over very well. Niall cringes like it’s a personal attack against him and turns to go almost immediately.  
  
“Hang on, Niall,” Louis says, grabbing Niall’s sleeve. “What’s this about, Zayn?”  
  
“That is not fair, Zayn,” Liam murmurs quietly. “We’ve spent all of today worrying about you and you’re just going to kick us out after two minutes?”  
  
yes  
  
“Please,” he breathes, squeezing his eyes shut tight. “Just leave me alone. I don’t want you here.”  
  
It’s wrong to say it but it’s the truth, and he knows it will work, he knows it will make them leave, knows it will make them feel like shit and that’s the point, he’s a monster, he is he is he is--  
  
They get out, and he’s--  
  
alone  
  



	9. Louis // 5:27 PM

**Louis. 5:27 PM**  
  
The room that they’ve been put in this time has a little kitchenette, with a teapot on the little stove and a jar of tea bags sitting on the little counter, and so Liam’s taken it upon himself to make them all tea, bustling around and whistling badly, fingers drumming on the sides of the styrofoam cups Niall found in one of the cabinets, waiting for the tea to finish seeping.  
  
Liam pours the tea and gives a cup to Louis, and he sniffs it, and it doesn’t smell too bad, but the first tiny tentative hesitant sip tastes like sewage water mixed with one of those awful-smelling candles his mum likes.  
  
Louis wants to spit it out, laugh at Liam, say how in the hell do you fuck up a cup of tea this badly, but the hopeful expectant look on Liam’s face and the fact that making tea has distracted Liam from being reminded that they’re trapped in another room makes him gulp the rest down. It burns his throat. He doesn’t care.  
  
“Refreshing, mate,” he says, putting down the little white styrofoam cup on the table, fingernails teasing the sides, and hoping that his grimace appears more like a satisfied grin. “Cheers.”  
  
Niall’s smiling, though, enjoying watching Louis squirm, so it’s doubly worth it. He knows he and Liam were hard on Niall, didn’t handle the situation in the right way at all, knows that they hurt Niall, knows that somehow Zayn hurt Niall when Niall went to see him alone. It’s relieving to see him smile.  
  
He watches as the smile on Niall’s face slips away, curls up and dies, when the door is smacked open and Paul charges through.  
  
“It’s Harry,” Paul says, words frantic, eyes wide with fear and worry. “He’s missing.”  
  
Louis’ fingernails impale the cup, crush it with an awful squeaking noise. It falls to the floor a second later.  
  
“What?” Niall asks, stumbling over the five letters.  
  
Paul repeats himself, and Louis finally gets it.  
  
harry  
  
is  
  
missing  
  
harry  
  
is  
  
gone  
  
“Do you lads have any idea of where he might have gone?” Paul asks.  
  
“The roof,” Liam says, voice soft and sour and brittle. “He said something earlier about the roof.”  
  
It’s true, Harry did say that before he stopped talking back in his room, and a horrible thought permeates the thick curdling haze in his brain but he pushes it down because no it’s not happening, Harry’s not up there right now, Harry’s not, he can’t be, he’s not doing what Louis thinks he might be doing, it’s not possible, oh no oh no oh no--  
  
Liam and Niall are thinking the same thing, Louis would bet, because they all look at each other and the horror on Liam’s face matches the horror on Niall’s face and then they stand up as one collective person and they push past Paul and then they’re running, finding the first flight of stairs they can, ignoring burning lungs and burning legs and burning throats and burning minds, going faster than should be possible, finding an unlocked door open a few horrific inches, no no no no no, crashing through it and seeing--  
  
\--seeing harry.  
  
Dread rips apart his sternum.  
  
He was right.  
  
Harry is a folded-over paper doll, bare toes curling over the edge of the building, wind whipping his hair, hospital gown hanging off of one shoulder because it’s way too big on him, head bowed, torso shaking.  
  
HARRY, Niall screams.  
  
He turns around, moving closer to them (thank god thank god thank god) and looks at them, blank face, blank eyes.  
  
Hi, he says softly, his lower lip quivering like he wants to say more things, but he never does.  
  
He turns back around, then, takes a step forward--  
  
NO  
  
A blur, then--it’s Liam, roaring with a ferocity Louis never imagined possible of him. He tackles Harry, pulling him against his chest as they both collapse to the ground, safe.  
  
A wheeze is pulled out of Louis’ throat, and he hunches over, bent over almost in half with the most exhausting relief he’s ever felt.  
  
Harry is completely still, awkwardly hunched into himself and around the cresent-shaped curve of Liam’s chest in a way that can’t possibly be comfortable, so still that it doesn’t even seem like he’s breathing, and for a god-awful, gut-wrenching moment it tears through Louis’ head that maybe Harry took pills or something in case this didn’t work, and so Louis’ about to scream, about to force his fingers down Harry’s throat to try to save him, but then--  
  
\--but then something inside Harry ripples, and his frozen silence turns into great heaving, gasping sobs so violent that makes it seem impossible that Harry’s body hasn’t been ripped apart yet.  
  
Liam looks like he’s going to vomit and he looks at Louis with a panicked look on his face, an _i cant do this i cant do this_ , and so Louis slowly folds his body onto the damp concrete and lets Liam pass Harry over, pass this cracked leaking floppy rag doll halfway into Louis’ lap so that Harry’s head is resting on his shoulder and he can wrap his arms around Harry’s trembling body and he’s honestly not sure if he’s ever going to let him go because this is the only way he knows Harry is safe.  
  
Niall’s there, then, appearing from the murky depths of the corner of Louis’ peripheral vision, plopping himself down against Harry’s body and absorbing the aching shudders with the soft inside of his elbow, tucked around Harry’s other shoulder.  
  
Somewhere in this small infinity it starts to rain, a biting mist that singes their hair and nips at the side of Louis’ neck, bent against Harry’s curls.  
  
“I was--I wasn’t going to do it,” he whispers into Louis’ collarbone, but he says it like he doesn’t believe it for a second and he says it like he’s terrified of himself. “Just wanted to be alone.”  
  
“There’s places to go to be alone that don’t involve standing on the ledge of a tall building, Harry,” Louis snaps, and he’s not sorry he said it, not a bit, even as Harry’s face crumples and his chest caves in and all of the sudden Louis just wants to _hurt_ Harry, make him realize how much he’s hurting all of them, because Harry is being _so fucking selfish_ right now--doesn’t he know what it would do to all of them if he offed himself, how it would _destroy_ them--and it’s not fair, he doesn’t fucking care if Harry’s depressed or fucked up or whatever, it’s not excusable, it’s never excusable, and sure, there’s been times that he’s been pretty fucking low but he’s never, _ever_ , not once thought of doing something that Harry tried to do? only thought about? because the idea of what it would do to his family and his mates and the lads was more than enough to steer him straight almost instantaneously, and suddenly--  
  
\--suddenly his hands reach out and clasp around Harry’s upper arms and he’s horrified for a millisecond at how bony and fragile they are, but then his anger scratches at the horror long enough that it’s cloudy and almost invisible, so all that’s there is this blinding, irrational, burning fury, and he doesn’t know what he is doing he only knows that he can’t control himself and he’s lifting both himself and Harry into the air, swaying on tired legs, and then he looks at Harry and Harry’s being shaken violently, _he’s_ shaking Harry violently, head flopping back and forth, and there’s the sound of whimpering and there is the sound of teeth chattering and he does not fucking care, he just wants to get this point across, and he’s vaguely aware that he’s yelling things, _damn it harry feel something listen to me don’t you dare don’t you dare don’t you dare try that again we love you damn it don’t do this to us don’t do this to me harry--_  
  
“That’s enough of that, Louis,” yells someone sharply, Liam, it must be, and he’s yanked backwards, fingers tearing  at his forearms, and it strikes him as a bit morbidly funny that even though nothing else in the world is right, at least there’s still symmetry, because his fingertips do the same to Harry’s arms, rip holes in them too, and he watches as Harry sways and as his knees kind of buckle and as Niall catches him, snatches him right out of the air, sinking down with him as Harry goes completely silent again, and Niall turns his eyes to meet Louis’ and there’s this look of complete disappointment and disgust on his face and he’s never seen Niall look like that, never thought it was possible, and that kind of shocks him into realizing what he’s done, and--  
  
A muffled strangled awful sound rips out of his throat and covers him in dust.  
  
“ _Harry_ ,” he chokes.  
  
Harry doesn’t look at him. Harry doesn’t move.  
  
“I’m sorry Harry, I’m so so sorry, Harry,” he blurs, tripping over the words because he has to get them out now, he has to make Harry know this, has to make sure Harry gets that he didn’t mean to do it, he didn’t want to do it, and that he’s sorry--  
  
His eyes flit to Liam, hunched over around his own crossed arms, sweating beads of helplessness and horror that are mixing with the raindrops, and Liam just shrugs his shoulders, mouth tight and shriveled with disapproval, and look back to Harry.  
  
“S’okay,” Harry murmurs lowly, eyes blinking shut. “I deserved it.”  
  
Frustration bubbles up, boils up, in Louis because it’s so _unfair_ that Harry thinks that, so absolutely wrong that he just wants to slap Harry, slap some sense into him, but that wouldn’t even work, and he’d never do it anyway, he never will hurt Harry again, and he doesn’t understand what’s wrong with Harry and he just wants to know so badly so he could to do something to _help_.  
  
But there are things to do, small things, but things that can help, and he can beg for Harry’s forgiveness later.  
  
“Let’s get out of the rain, yeah?” he says to Harry and also Liam and Niall because Liam’s turned white and he’s shaking a bit and it’s probably shock, a little voice says in the back of his head, and Niall looks like he’s about to cry, well, they probably all do, really, but Niall looks the worst, his lower lip is trembling ever so slightly, and it’s unfair but he’s the oldest so maybe it is fair that he’s the one taking charge now, he’s the one making things happen, and that means he’s not allowed to be not okay, he’s just not, so he swallows back everything and takes a hold of Harry’s arm, almost crying in relief when Harry doesn’t flinch at Louis’ reach for him, gently pulling Harry up and wrapping an arm around him, _i’ve got you haz it’s going to be oka_ y whispered in his ear.  
  
Harry’s eyes look huge, sagged open with something terrible, and he looks like a gangly child, all spindly fingers and long sharp angles and messy curls, horrible secrets bulging in his throat and whispers trapped in his teeth.  
  
Liam gets the door for them, thank god it hadn't closed all the way or they'd be locked out, and the air conditioning hits them like a ton of icy needles, and it hurts, and Harry whimpers, and that hurts more than the cold.

  
He shouldn't be surprised by the mass of people waiting for them inside, but he is, he's baffled by the white coats and blue scrubs and Paul, there's just so many people, and Harry cringes into his side, hides his face and one of the faceless people reaches for Harry and then Louis gets it, he gets what they are going to do, they are going to take Harry away again, and that's not what he needs, the last thing he needs is to be locked away and poked and prodded and asked questions that he can't answer, won't answer, and don't they know anything? Harry needs the boys, Harry needs to be around people who actually care about him, and they can fix this, they don't need a bloke with a fancy badge to fix Harry, they can do it themselves, they have to, it's the only way--

  
"Tommo, you're hurting him," Liam remarks, pushing at Louis' hand, which he now realizes is locked around Harry's upper arm, but Harry doesn't seem to mind, still, though, he lessens his grip and Harry kind of sags against him.

  
"You're not taking him anywhere," Louis says as firmly as he can, trying to look everyone in the eye at once, hoping his voice doesn't shake. "He's coming with us."  
Liam turns and looks at him with something akin to disbelief.

  
"Lou--" he starts.

  
'He needs help, Louis," Niall blurs, looking surprised at himself. "He almost tossed himself off a building. You can't fix that by yourself."

  
Liam nods, and Harry stands there motionless, and everyone else nods, and _what?_ what are they thinking? are they idiots? why can't they see that what Harry needs is to talk to people he trusts? Harry'll never open up to strangers, it took them weeks back when they were first getting to know each other, and that's because Louis trusted Harry first, trusted him with secrets and hopes and dreams he never once thought he'd share with another living soul, so he doubts that Harry'll say a word to these people, ever, and that's never going to help him, innit?

  
He looks around wildly at everyone, please please please let there be someone here who understands, but no one does, and he's outnumbered, and he's never been one to back down, especially for something _this fucking important_ but fuck he's not stupid, he knows he can't win this, so he slips _a sorry hazza i'll fix this_ into Harry's ear and lets go of his arm and lets Harry sink into Niall's side and then he walks away, down the stairs, trying to ignore Liam's shout of LOU! behind him and the sound of Niall turning his back on him and the sound of another whimper from Harry.

  
He'll figure something out.  



	10. Liam // 6:34 PM

**Liam. 6.34** PM  
  
The only way he could really describe it, really, what he’s feeling right at this moment, is his skin being slowly sloughed off with a butter knife dipped in acid. He feels naked, heartless, faceless, a multitude of other --lesses, because that’s what he is, what they all are, because Harry is--Harry is broken, Zayn is broken, Louis is gone, pulled a Benedict Arnold, a Harry Houdini, escaped the straightjacket that Liam kind of feels like he’s trapped in, except being trapped is what he’s supposed to be, isn’t it? Though it feels wrong, feels awful, but Harry needs help, help that Liam and Niall and Louis can’t give him, obviously, because they fucked up once before, let Harry get this way, didn’t stop it, and they failed so horrendously, Harry can’t possibly forgive them, the fans can’t possible forgive them, he can’t possibly forgive himself--  
  
breathe  
  
and he does, takes a deep, wavering breath, and he’s not crying, except he is, and Niall is looking stonily at the ground, and it’s like a contest, a contest to see who will give up first, who will storm out first, who will break first, who will be the one left standing above crumpled bodies and the broken dreams of them all, and who knew that the achingly young and hopeful and naive and innocent lads they were, crying over not being picked for some stupid television show, would turn into these broken and bitter empty husks of people, insides swollen and stomachs churning--  
  
breathe  
  
and he does, takes a deep, wavering breath, and he is crying, and he knows it, and Niall--  
  
Niall isn’t looking stonily at the ground, he’s crying too, eyes glazed, hunched over around himself, slumped against the wall, and somehow, impossibly, he looks worse than Liam feels, and what? how is that? because if Liam felt worse he’d feel dead, probably, and so that is unsettling, and what to do what to do because he probably should say something, break this awful paralyzing suffocating silence, but he can’t talk, and there’s nothing to say anyway, nothing nothing nothing, and so Liam crumbles quietly by himself.  
  
They’re back in the room they were in before Harry almost tossed himself off a roof, and it’s different, so different without Louis, it’s like a light has gone out, and Louis’ not dead, Louis’ not dead he’s in the building somewhere, he’s still here, Liam has to remind himself over and over again, because it feels like he is, feels like he’s going to be gone forever, and there’s a sharp paralyzing fear thrumming inside him that Louis hates them, feels like they betrayed him, and the look on his face when they stopped him from taking Harry away is burned onto his corneas, and he is going to throw up except there is nothing to throw up, he has no stomach he has no insides he has nothing, he is nothing--  
  
breathe  
  
and he tries, but this time he can’t really, not at all, and oh god, he’s having another panic attack, isn’t he, fuck fuck fuck please not again, please please please no this isn’t fair this isn’t fair this isn’t fair, and everything is happening in threes, his thoughts his words please stop  
  
and then niall is there, a hand on the back of his neck and blonde hair in his peripheral vision, words softly spoken in his ear, it’s okay Liam breathe breathe breathe, and he tries, he tries so damn hard, but he’s failing, except  
  
wait  
  
he’s breathing, shuddering, awful breaths, but still, air is coming into his lungs, and he can think clearer, and he’s okay, somewhat okay, but that’s good enough, it has to be, and oh god he did it again  
  
“Sorry,” he mutters, feeling the blood rush into his face, it’s burning, “don’t know where that came from.”  
  
Niall grimaces slash smiles, says he understands, okay if you say so niall, cause Liam doesn’t really believe him, honestly.  
  
There’s a knock at the door, then, three of them, knock knock knock, quick and short and devastating, cause Niall springs away, wipes his eyes, and damn it Liam needed a cuddle then, needed the comfort of a human body, needed the comfort of one of his best mates, and he’d never, ever say that out loud, but it’s true, and he tries to think of when he last hugged Harry, and he can’t remember, and that makes him gag, grabs on to his esophagus and yanks hard, because what if Harry needed that? and no one gave him that? and that’s why he had a break down, that’s definitely why, and it’s all Liam’s fault, it is it is it is--  
  
The door opens and sucks those thoughts outside of him, makes them dissolve, pours acid on his face, because it’s a camera, it’s two cameras it’s three it’s four thousand, all flashing, and then suddenly an avalanche of legs and heads and fingertips erupts into the room, and people are everywhere, he is drowning in people, he is drowning in noise, people are yelling things at him, and he can’t understand a word anyone is saying because _Niall_ , his eyes are gaping open, his mouth is gaping open in a silent scream, and he’s shrinking away into the wall, and oh god oh god oh god suddenly all that is in his head is protect Niall save Niall get these people away from Niall, and then his fists are in the air and his fists are meeting flesh and he’s _screaming_ , he only knows that because his throat hurts, and all the while the camera lights are flashing and people are yelling still, and he is not in control he knows that, he knows that he has no control of what his hands and feet are doing and is that blood? yes it is blood he is drawing blood he is _hurting_ these people, and he doesn’t want to do that he never wanted to do that he just wants them to leave him and Niall alone, especially Niall, please just leave Niall alone, take him instead, just leave Niall alone, please please please please--  
  
and then it dawns on him that the best thing to do is leave, and that thought somehow incredibly brings control back into his bones, and he drops his now-limp hands and they swing like broken pendulums and he turns to Niall who shrinks back on him, and realization is growing like mold on his skin what has he done what has he _done_ , and he doesn’t want to turn around and look but he has to, he really does, and so he turns around and stares into the camera flashes and the paps are staring back at him with their fingers still on their camera buttons and there is horror and disbelief on their faces but also a sort of glee even on the faces of the ones he has knocked down onto the floor and he realizes that he has just given them the best photo opportunity of their lives and perhaps maybe probably maybe definitely he has just ruined his own life and he realizes this in less than two seconds and then he is hit with a tidal wave of injustice because it’s not fair, it’s really not fair that these guys are here, it’s not right, hopefully there’s an American law against it because it should be illegal for them to barge in like this, but then there’s a wave of horror because he’s going to get charged with battery and assault for attacking these people, even though they deserved it, even though it wasn’t his decision to do it, and he wasn’t in control while doing it, he didn’t want to hurt them, but that probably won’t matter in a court of law and so he’s going to jail, and his parents are going to be so disappointed, the fans are going to be disappointed, oh god oh god oh god--  
  
then Paul’s storming in, shouting, fury streaked across his face, and there’s other guys, too, security guys, and the paps scatter, clutching their cameras close to their chests and they somehow manage to get away, escape, but the security guys rush after them, and then there’s silence, deafening, crushing silence that pulses in awful, bone-breaking waves, but then Paul opens his mouth and--  
  
are you hurt are you okay what happened  
  
he can’t answer paul, he can’t, because then paul will know, and then bad things will happen, and they will happen, he knows, but not right now they’re not, right now everything hasn’t gone to shit, okay it has but not as bad as it will be, so he sews his mouth shut, erases his lips and tongue and teeth, if they don’t exist he can’t use them, and then--  
  
 _niall_  
  
he’s forgotten about Niall, the person he was trying to protect oh god oh god oh god what he hurt Niall during the time he was out of control, what if he’s hurt him what if he’s killed him, terror is swelling in his throat, ricocheting through his veins, he can’t breathe, he’s going to die--  
  
and then he sees Niall looking at him, and he’s blinking and moving his mouth and is he saying words? Liam realizes that Niall’s telling Paul what happened, no no no no no  
  
NO he screams, don’t tell him, don’t let him know, don’t hate me, please please please, and then his chest is shaking and what is happening to him? he can’t think straight he doesn’t know what’s going on he doesn’t have control over anything he can’t breathe he can’t breathe he can’t breathe and suddenly he’s looking through a tunnel, a black tunnel that’s closing in on him, help help help he’s going to die, he’s going to be buried alive, help help help, there’s a ringing in his ears ring ring ring go away go away go away please leave him alone he hasn’t done anything wrong, the only light is a dull flicker roaring away from him, come back he needs to see he doesn’t want to be blind forever, but he’s going to be blind forever, no one will love him if he’s blind, but they don’t anyway, that’s the truth, that’s the cold biting aching truth, no one loves him, he’s the least favorite of the band, he knows it they all know it, and all the lads feel sorry for him but are secretly glad they’re not the least favorite of the band, good for them, good for fucking them, god why can’t he breathe why can’t he see what is happening to him what the hell is happening to him is he dying?  
  
his fingers crack and splinter against the carpeted floor, how’d he get on the ground? because he must be on the ground, there’s no carpet on the ceiling, so he must be on the ground, but he doesn’t know how he got there except he does, he remembers falling and he remembers how it hurt and then the pain hits him, how’d he forget the pain? it hurts so bad, he must have broken something when he fell or something, that could be the only explanation for how this hurts so badly--  
  
he somehow forgets the pain when he opens his eyes and he realizes he can see, he can see he can see he can see, and the light beams into his eyes and he sees Paul’s face next to his, telling him to breathe, shut up Paul he can’t he can’t possibly breathe, that is a stupid thing to tell him, of course he wants to breathe of course he’s trying to breathe but he’s not a trick pony, he can’t breathe on command, that’s ridiculous, he wants to breathe dammit but he can’t, all he can do his scrape his windpipe up and down, up and down, make awful ragged hitching noises, he’s scaring himself--  
  
of course he should be scaring himself, he attacked all those people, he’s a monster, what else could he be capable of doing if he was able to hurt those people, there must be a darkness in him, evilness inside him, he should be locked away so he can’t hurt anyone else, even if they did deserve it, cause those people did deserve it, right? they bombarded him and niall, they shouldnt’ve done that, it’s not right it’s not fair, and he knows that they must be the biggest story on earth right now, just cause of all that’s happened, with harry and zayn being attacked and niall being attacked in the mob of people and oh god all the pictures and videos that must be circulating online right now, of course they’re the biggest story on earth, and so those paps must have felt desperate to get the scoop on the lads, but how’d they even find liam and niall, there must be a rat in the hospital, and who the hell would do that? it has been a shit twenty four hours, the worst twenty four hours in his life, and to have people actively making it worse for him makes something horrible ferment in his chest, and he feels like he’s passively letting bad things to happen to him, cause he can’t do anything to stop them, but maybe--maybe he can.  
  
He’s thinking logically now, clear and crisp and fluid, and air fills his lungs and he breathes out and then he tells Paul that he wants to make a video, a statement of sorts, and once he says it it feels right to do, feels like a natural thing to do, cause throughout their time in the spotlight they have made videos to talk to the public, and he wonders why he didn’t think of it before.  
  
Paul looks surprised.  
  
“Are you sure you’re alright, Liam,” he asks, and no, Liam’s not sure at all, and the blood on his knuckles and the red spots on the carpet are haunting him, and he feels sick and he feels lightheaded, a bit, there’s horror dancing on his sternum, but he knows he has to do this. There is no way he can’t do this. He knows he’s definitely not alright, but he has to do it, he has to he has to he has to, and if Paul won’t let him or if Management won’t let him he will find a way. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and a plan is already laying its foundations down across his medulla. It is radical but he is brave.   
  
He pushes himself off the floor and he looks back and Paul and Niall make a move to grab him but he is energized by something beautiful thrumming inside him and their fingertips scrape his shirt but he is too fast, too fast, and he is out the door before they can stop him.  
  
Find the door find the door, find the way outside. He wants to speak to the fans and the press himself, face to face, with no one’s thoughts inside his head and no one’s words inside his mouth. He will tell them exactly what happened and exactly what is going on, even though he doesn’t know. But he will feed their appetite for news and hopefully they will be satisfied with his words. He will have nothing left to give them when his words are gone, and he hopes they won’t tear him to pieces (but they will they will they will, he knows it deep in his bones, the kind of knowledge that sinks and claws and buries, but it is okay, because he will save Niall and Harry and Zayn and Louis, the press won’t bother the lads after this, he is offering himself up as a sacrifice, he is a martyr, but he was born to be one, he just hasn’t known it until now).  
  
An exit sign smacks him in the face, and it is orange and it is glowing and it is the most terrifying thing he’s ever seen in his entire life, hanging above a door, but it is the way out of the building and it is his way out of this horrible situation and his hands reach out and he remembers for a second how much pain he is in but then it goes away, poof, and he feels better and so he pushes open the door and there’s probably a million literary metaphors about opening a door to do something like this but he was always shit at English and so he walks through the door with nothing in his brain except for this burning need to talk.  
  
There is a sea of people, he is on a balcony standing above millions of people and bright flashes, and it is strangely quiet but then someone spots him and that someone turns into everyone, and there is screaming so loud he is going to burst, going to cry, but he can’t do that, he has to tell them, and he screams back, shut up i want to tell you something, but no one can hear him, he has no voice, and he has to do something, something something something, and then it pops into his head and it’s stupid and foolish but it’s the only way, the only way, and he climbs over the balcony fence and tries to scale down it, tries to get down to the people so he can be a real sacrifice, they will cut him up and share him amongst themselves, all of them, he will be nothing but skin cells and bone fragments but that is okay, he accepts it, he is ready, he can do this, and he is climbing down but then he looks down and it is so far away and then he’s somehow not holding on to anything.  
  
He falls.  
  
It goes dark.  
  



	11. Niall // 7:29 PM

**Niall. 7:29** PM  
  
He is being punched in the stomach over and over, and the fists are not fists at all, really more like needles. It is this mixed sensation of dull aching and sharp piercing that describes what he is feeling. He did not know it was possible.  
  
And he is alone, locked in a room, for his own good, of course. There is a security guard, a girl one, reading a stupid vapid magazine and sitting on a couch in the far corner of the room, so he supposes he’s not really alone, but he can’t talk to her, and she’s babysitting him, like he’s a toddler or on suicide watch, and it is funnybutnotfunny how those two things are so different yet have the same consequences, and never in his life he thought he would be in a position so sad he’d have to joke about suicide watch (because the thought that one of the lads or him will probably end up on suicide watch is a typhoon trapped inside his eyelids) and he wants to scream at her, I haven’t done anything this is not my fault I refuse to cry in front of strangers, but his insides are swollen and mildew is growing on his tongue and he cannot say a word.  
  
He wonders if he is going to have to say anything. He’s the only one left standing, honestly, because Harry is messed up and Zayn is messed up, maybe more than Harry (he is the only one of the lads who truly knows what happened and the information is burning a gaping, rotting hole into the side of his liver), and Louis is gone, no one knows where he is or what he is doing and terror is sitting quietly on top of Niall’s shoulder, a singeing crystal angel, feeding horrible, awful, scary ideas into Niall’s left ear (Louis’ been attacked by fans Louis’ been attacked by reporters Louis’ abandoned them for good Louis’ never going to talk to them again Louis’ been kidnapped Louis’ been killed), and then there’s Liam, who’s finebutnotfine, fallen onto a balcony the next floor down, trying to be a prophet, a messenger, the Chosen One, and if Niall was religious he would’ve thought that Liam was struck down by God, the way it happened, and if Niall was a writer he would’ve thought that it was poetic, but he’s neither, and he thinks nothing except how terriblehorrificheartstopping it was and how he feels it more than thinks it.  
  
So if Management needs one of the lads to speak at a press conference, it’s going to be him, and he can’t he can’t he can’t, these are not his stories to tell, and he will not speak he will cut his own tongue out he will tear at his vocal cords until they are nothing but frayed string, he will unhinge his neurons so he knows nothing, is nothing, and it will be okay.  
  
That’s a lie, though, it will never be okay, never ever again, unless he could find a way to erase these last two days, stop Harry from starting this whole chain of dominos falling, and that’s impossible, even though he’s dreamed about it, dozing on that awful motel bed, dreamed about the concert going fine and the lads going back to their nice hotel and eating too much pizza and sneaking two fifties to the bellhop to bring them back some bad American beer and watching scary movies and falling asleep all curled up together (and waking up with a wet face, alone, shaking). He hasn’t slept since. He doesn’t want to dream any more.  
  
At every single noise he flinches, feels his heart shake, his torso freeze. He is terrified beyond comprehension that the paparazzi will come back for him, or fans will find their way inside and rip him into a billion tiny shreds. There is no Liam to save him now (though hearing Liam roar and seeing him explode like that, knowing that Bad Things were going to happen because of that, was awful). The door is locked from the outside, by a passcode, he was told. He cannot leave and no one except Paul and the security people have the code. There are security guards outside his door and a security guard inside his room, he is a prisoner, a lost boy, there is no one to save him, he must pay the sins for his crime, right?--  
  
The punishment suits the crime. He wonders if Harry felt this alone.  
  
If the fans knew, they’d hate him. No one would love a monster, no one would love such a fucking disappointment, they already love him the least so they’ll hate him for not saving the others, not sacrificing himself, and he knows deep inside his soul, in a tiny, dark, rotting cavern tucked away against his brain stem that he should have been sent home before he got to be placed with the other lads, they’d be better off without him, he has no talent, hell, he shouldn’t have even tried auditioning, he should have known his limitations, god he was so full of himself when he was sixteen, so blissfully unaware of everything that would happen, the person he would turn into. It disgusts him but makes him want to sob.   
  
He realizes that he’s crying and making these awful pathetic sniffs, and his face burns painfully red, because there’s a total stranger in the room with him, but his eyes dart over to the guard and she doesn’t even look like she cares, doesn’t give a rat’s arse about anything but the makeup tips in that stupid rag, and rage shoots from his veins into his chest, spindles into a heaving mass, and then he’s standing, fingers clawed into fists, walking over her with every single muscle tensed, reaching out with a shaking hand to tear the magazine out of her hand, rip his face up--  
  
\--but he doesn’t, he can’t do it, because on the cover is one direction and they’re all smiling and happy and he remembers that photo shoot and he remembers harry laughing and he remembers them all laughing and so his hand falls limply down and then he sits limply down on to the floor, and his head fits perfectly in his hands, and his eyes are closed but he can still hear, hear the rustle of the woman putting down her magazine and getting up and putting a hand on his back--  
  
DON’T TOUCH ME   
  
he says that only in his head  
  
he won’t hurt anyone again  
  
not with violence not with words   
  
because that’s what he’s good at  
  
the only thing he’s good at is hurting people  
  
he’s realized that, just now in this tiny sharp millisecond, and it’s bittersweet knowledge, because he’s glad, so glad, that he’s aware of it now, so he won’t do it ever ever ever again, but it’s sad, and it breaks his heart and grabs him round the throat and squeezes until his eyes bulge and his teeth fall out and clatter on the floor.  
  
but he did say it, he must’ve, because he can ear the echo boomerang into his eardrums and shatter them to pieces, and the woman’s hand is no longer on his back, and for some wild deranged reason he misses it, and god he just wants to be held, he wants someone to wrap their arms around him and run their fingers through his hair and tell him it’s going to be alright and not care about the wetness or the snot on their shirt, and the ache inside him just kind of crushes him in that moment, and it hurts so badly and he understands, finally, how feeling like this, so intricately and explicitly and gut-wrenchingly bad, could make someone do what Harry did, and his windpipe is broken there’s a black hole in his chest, he is only aware that he is hunched over, curled over like a burning piece of paper, and he is falling into some dark abyss deep inside himself, but then--  
  
resolve pings through his ribcage, light and strong and clear, and suddenly he can sit up straight and breathe without his chest catching and his face is wet but his eyes are dry and he can finally _think_ again, and what the hell just happened, how does he feel this okay again, maybe he shouldn’t question it, but he does he does he does, this shouldn’t be possible--  
  
but it is.  
  
And there’s something small and round and warm glowing inside him, pulsing along with his heartbeat, and it’s quiet but it murmurs that he did this, he did what Harry couldn’t do and what Zayn couldn’t do and what Liam couldn’t do, he dug himself out, he did it himself, and even though no one will ever know, he’s still proud of himself, and it’s something he hasn’t had in a long long time.   
  
but--  
  
Niall swallows thickly and sweeps his eyes up, suddenly acutely aware of someone else’s presence in the room--did the woman panic and bring a nurse or something, fuck he hopes not--but it’s not, it’s Louis.  
  
It’s Louis, and Niall is jerked sideways by the realization that it was Louis that must have fixed this, not Niall, and now that Niall really thinks about it Louis kind of looks smug, like he’s proud that he was able to bring Niall back from that dark dark terrifying place, but you know what Louis no one likes smug bastards.  
  
Niall wanted to be the one to save himself, fuck he just wants to not need anyone like this, he wants be able to take care of himself dammit, he doesn’t need Louis, he doesn’t need any of the lads, no matter what they think.  
  
He’s bitter about this, he knows it, but he accepts it, and the bitterness has become a permanent part of him, it seems, fused to his third rib on the left side, he can feel it, aching and black and twisting up into his head to scratch at his thoughts, curdling them, but maybe it’s not a bad thing, maybe he can see things properly now, in a way that he was never able to before, and it’s okay to be like this, he thinks. Maybe he should have been like this all along.  
  
“I paid the security guards and Angie, that’s the lady over there, and they’ll let us go, so we can go find Harry and Zayn and Liam and get out of here and fix this. You’re alright now, Niall.” There’s a sense of urgency in Louis’ voice, something that’s never been there before, his voice clipped and baited and and demanding.   
  
Niall says nothing. He has nothing to say.  
  
“Niall, we have to do this. For Harry,” says Louis, frowning, like he’s unable to comprehend that maybe he doesn’t have all the fucking answers and maybe Niall doesn’t want to go along with this stupid fucking plan that won’t fucking work, and shouldn’t, because Zayn and Liam are fucking _hospitalized_ and Harry’s gone fucking insane and Niall feels like he’s about to go the way of Harry any fucking minute.   
  
“Piss off,” Niall says quietly. The words climb out of his throat without him stopping them, or trying to stop them, and it’s then he realizes that he really, truly means it.   
  
He’s done.  
  
Louis’ face drops, and he looks like he’s been hit, the way he recoils just slightly enough to be noticeable, but Niall refuses to feel bad about it.  
  
(there’s a tiny, sobbing miniature version of him cowering in the back of his throat that does, though, feels so incredibly and horrifically awful, who is he, what is happening to him, but he refuses to listen)  
  
Niall stares at a spot on the wall just a little to the left of Louis’s left ear. If this is a battle of wills he will not give up. He is stronger than everyone thinks. He is he is he is.  
  
but then something makes him dart his eyes a fraction of a millimeter right, and--  
  
fuck is Louis going to cry?  
  
For a panicked millisecond Niall thinks that Louis’ going to cry, and fuck he doesn’t know what he would do, but then Louis’ lips tighten and his forehead straightens out and his eyes get sharp, so sharp.  
  
“Fine then,” he says, and it cuts through Niall (was he hoping that Louis would try to fight him, does he want to fight Louis? yes maybe he does, maybe that primal savage urge sneaking up on him, the urge to claw and bite and _rage_ , is right, but no, that lady--Angie, that’s it--is still here and staring, her mouth slightly open and her fingers twitching, like she has a mobile in her pocket and it’s begging her to take a photo of this fight between two lads of One Direction, and if they started kicking the shit out of each other it’d make her famous and it’d make her rich and he hates her, he hates her, he _hates_ her more than Louis in this moment and so he won’t let her win)  
  
“I’m sure Angie would be happy to help you with Harry,” Niall says stiffly and politely in the harshest manner possible. He’s alarmed by the formality that has soaked into his voice, like he’s dealing with someone who is a shit person but still a person that he has to be polite to, and it’s in that moment he realizes that nothing will ever be the same between any of them ever again, it’s all ruined forever, what they had is gone, and he rushes out of the room not because he wants to leave but because he won’t let Louis see him cry. He won’t give him that.   
  
The guards aren’t there. No one’s out here and god the quietness and emptiness takes the breath out of his lungs and the wall kind of seeps into his back as he half leans, half collapses against it and slides down the tile. Fuck.  
  
He can’t stay here, though. Louis will come out soon (with Angie, Niall sneers to himself) and he doesn’t want to face him, doesn’t want to see the disappointment and pity and hatred, god Niall you really fucked up this time--  
  
No. no no no no no. He won’t let himself get into the spiral. Even if those things are true they can be forgotten. He has to move, has to get his mind off of himself and his failures as a person. He can’t wallow. He won’t wallow. He will save himself before he even has to.  
  
He needs to move, needs to get away, but that’s impossible, because the hospital is surrounding by rabid fans and reporters, he’ll never be able to leave, he’ll live out his life in this hospital, die in this hospital--  
  
god he’s a mess.  
  
He needs to think clearly, think rationally, think without the overwhelming despair bubbling over him, think Niall _think_ \--  
  
A disguise.  
  
Yeah, a disguise, he could totally pull this off, he’s smarter than people think he is, he is he is he is--  
  
God, who the fuck is he kidding. He’s a stupid kid. This isn’t a Hollywood spy film, god he’s stupid.  
  
Niall runs a hand through his hair and freezes.  
  
His hair.  
  
That’s it.  
  
He’ll cut it off, and he’ll look fucking ugly, so ugly, and awkward and even more out of place with the other lads, maybe Management will kick him out of the band, maybe the lads will be embarrassed to be associated with him, but when it is gone he will be free.  
  
Maybe this is what he’s always needed.  
  
A knife a knife yes a knife is what he needs, scissors would work too but a knife seems right, feels right, he’ll chop off all of his hair with a knife and no one will recognize him and even if they do there will be nothing left to take from him. He will be free.  
  
There’s a pure sort of energy pulsing inside his veins, thrumming wildly but beautifully. He’s going to save himself.  
  
He feels like he’s floating as he gets up off of the floor and starts walking, floating because he has a purpose, because he stood up for himself, because he’s doing what none of the boys could do, what even Louis couldn’t do, he’s saving himself.  
  
A knife a knife a knife where would he get a knife. He doesn’t know and he doesn’t see any and despair is creeping up on him and with every ticking second frustration is threatening to overwhelm him, this isn’t fair, this isn’t--  
  
His breath is haggard but his eyes are clear, and when he sees the cart with the knives they use for surgeries just sitting there out in the open his heart leaps.  
  
The knives are sharp but sharp is good, sharp is what he needs, and when he picks one up with a trembling hand he knows deep within his bones that this is the right thing to do.  
  
Here is as good a place as any to do it, and he’s probably running out of time anyway, better do it now, better do it here, and courage sings through his skin and he reaches up and grabs a hunk of hair with his free hand and slices through it and he lets the hair fall onto the floor and he lurches for a second but then he’s okay, he can do this, he’s going to do this, and he does it again and again until he can’t slice any more off. It’s short now but that’s not good enough, he has to get it all off or it won’t be right, besides he probably looks like a mutilated barbie doll some little kid took scissors to, so he has to get it all off, he has to he has to, all he has to do is slide the knife across his scalp, easy enough, and he tries once but it just hurts but that’s okay, he tries twice and still nothing and it hurts more and his fingers are wet and hot, and he tries three times but no hair comes off and god fucking damn it he messed up again but then that doesn’t matter  
  
because they found him  
  
the reporters and girls stare and him and he stares at them and it hurts but he doesn’t care because he can’t move, he can’t get away, his fingers grow numb, the knife slips from his hand, the floor swallows it, the cameras click, his mouth opens and closes and opens and closes and opens and closes, the cameras click and click and click and click and click  
  
then a blur, then screaming in front of him, the knife appears again, floating in the hair, no someone’s holding it, no _louis’_ holding it, and then he registers what louis is saying--  
  
“--get AWAY from him you sick fucks, you _BASTARDS_ , leave or I’ll stick this knife into every one of you, I’ll kill you all--”  
  
it goes on like that, Niall can see Louis’ mouth moving, but he loses focus as he sinks down onto the floor  
  
dimly he hears screaming, get up niall run niall get a nurse hurry there’s so much blood, but words mean nothing anymore, nothing means anything anymore, what? he’s confusing himself but he doesn’t care, thinking is too much work now.  
  
his head hurts  
  
the floor is sticky  
  
and red  
  
definitely red  
  
so red  
  
his head hurts  
  
it hurts  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry to leave it like that.
> 
> this is the last of the chapters that i had already written before i took the original down. from now on there will be a little more time in between updates (especially because i leave for school in three days).


	12. Zayn // 8:07 PM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please let me know what you think.

Zayn had sat in the fucking dark for hours, unable to sleep, afraid to sleep, actually. That’s fucking sad, that those bastards took sleep away from him along with everything else. He’s never hated anyone before, not like this. He didn’t think he had the capacity to hate anyone like this.  
  
And that makes him feel bad, not in the sense that he thinks it’s wrong, really, to hate them, he’s fucking entitled to hate them after what they did. It scares him because the men did what they did because of hatred. And lots of other things, too, but hatred was one of them and it’s not the same thing, but it _is_ , and that fucking terrifies him more than anything. He doesn’t ever want to be capable of what they did to him.  
  
The paranoia and the jumpiness are still here too, his muscles kinda hurt from being tensed all the fucking time, and that’s definitely not helping him recover from fucking surgery, his eyes won’t let him look away from the door in case it’s not a nurse coming through, or the psychologist, or an investigator, what if it’s those fucking bastards come to finish the job--  
  
God he’s being irrational. Stupid. There’s probably a greater chance of a meteor crashing into the hospital and landing right on his fucking head than those guys being able to get into the hospital and find his room and get in, because it’s locked and there’s security out there. Fuck, he’s being stupid.  
  
That’s only partially his fault, though. Because apparently someone has decided that it’s better for him to stay in the fucking dark about all of this, and so he has no knowledge of if his attackers have been arrested, or they’re still out there, or how much everyone knows of what happened, if people are blaming him for going out by himself, if people think he brought it on himself, what the fans are saying about it, if anyone actually gives a fuck at all about it. Or him. He doesn’t want to know. But he does.  
  
He watches the nurse, a young, vaguely-attractive blonde girl with a spark in her eye that makes him ache for Perrie. God he wishes she was here with him. She’d be able to make him feel a little better, a little safer, a little more normal, and the idea of having someone around to hug him and tell him everything would be alright near chokes him to death with how much he aches for it.  
  
This nurse is into him, though. He can tell, by the side glances she keeps giving him and the red flush that spread across her cheeks when they had made eye contact after she first came in. He could use this to his advantage, maybe, if he needs anything.  
  
“Hey,” he says to her back as she checks something on one of the monitors. He doesn’t mean to say it, didn’t want to say it, doesn’t know why said it, but it’s out there now and now he is going to actually have to talk to someone.  
  
There’s a gasp, and she turns around slowly.  
  
They look at each other for a billion seconds, and then he realizes the point of all of this.  
  
“Do you think that maybe you could bring me a television, please,” he asks, lowly but not low enough to hide the cracking and croaking his voice makes from un-use. Fuck he sounds pitiful. Broken, almost.  
  
Her eyes glow big and unblinking in the harsh white light of the hospital room, and he sees the hesitation written into the creased lines in her forehead. He knows, then, what she’s going to say before she says it.  
  
“I was told you’re not allowed to have one,” she murmurs, biting her lip.  
  
Damn it.  
  
“I’ll give you a picture or an autograph, or a kiss, something like that,” he says, forcing his lips into what he hopes looks like a cheeky smile. A second later he feels sick at the thought that he’s whoring himself out for a television.  
  
She inhales sharply, and he dimly wonders if she’d still want to kiss him if he threw up.  
  
“Or some money. A lot of money, actually. I’m sure they don’t pay you enough here, how about I write you a check, just give me your name, babe, you could quit your job here, probably, how does that sound.” He’s rambling, his heart is beating fast and his hands are beginning to tremble. Nausea is frothing in his throat.  
  
“A kiss would be nice,” she breathes, stepping closer to him. She licks her lips, staring at him, and it’s not at all the same but it feels almost exactly like how the bastards from that night looked at him.  
  
Panic snarls inside his head, creeping around to slice at his eyelids. It fills his lungs and threatens to drown him, pull him under and never let him go. But--  
  
Somehow, impossibly, he’s able to push out through his ears, let it dissolve into the cold air of the hospital room. His palms are clammy and his mouth is cotton-filled and there is hot moisture behind his eyeballs but that is all there is left and for the first time in two days he thinks that he’ll maybe be okay again.  
  
And then it comes to him, a beautiful realization that fills him with filthy guilt but chest-splitting relief. He’ll fake a panic attack, get this girl away from him. It’s horrible but brilliant and he knows it’s his only shot at making it not happen to him and so he starts wheezing, in and out and in and out, murmuring _don’t hurt me don’t hurt me_ in between breathy sobs.  
  
He cracks an eye open and sees the girl leaving through the door, thank god. Zayn relaxes and then--  
  
In his tiny line of vision he sees the main doctor come in, fuck. He didn’t think the nurse would bring someone back. Zayn forces his breathing soft and slowly, one two inhale one two exhale, slack muscles pliant body.  
  
His chest burns bright and sharp and sudden, then. Shit. He must’ve overdone the breathing earlier, must’ve fucked up the stitches, somehow, and he’s about to open his eyes and ask the doctor to up the morphine, he’s hurt enough over the past couple days, when it recedes a little. He can handle it, probably.  
  
“Must’ve worn himself out, poor guy,” the doctor clucks, and Zayn hates her. The nurse laughs nervously. “Check his stitches, will you, and log the episode down for the psychologist,” she says, her voice growing smaller with every syllable.  
  
It must be just the nurse and him, now, and oh god what if she tries to kiss him now that they’re alone with no one to stop her?  
  
He hears footsteps coming towards him and his veins turn to ice. He doesn’t breathe.  
  
“Shhhh, I’m not going to hurt you,” she says calmly. “That’s it, easy now.”  
  
Her hands ghost over his abdomen, lifting the hospital gown, gently pulling off the bandage, a soft noise from her that Zayn hopes means that he’s fine.  
  
“I think I’d rather have an autograph,” she murmurs before she puts a fresh bandage on him.  
  
Zayn exhales heavily.  
  
He’s a fucking child, isn’t he, having to be soothed with what amounts to baby talk and level voices. Definitely childish for refusing to open his eyes until she leaves, refusing to face up to her. She’ll go home and talk about how she gave Zayn Malik a panic attack when she tried to kiss him--or she’ll leave that part out, maybe twist it around and say they made out or had hot dirty sex on his hospital bed, spread filthy lies and pictures of him lying vulnerable and broken, risk her job for the envy of thousands and five seconds of fame on twitter or tumblr. He wishes he didn’t care about what people said about him, especially pathetic teenage girls, but he does he does he does.  
  
There’s a television at the foot of his bed and a remote on the little table next to his bed when he opens his eyes. He’s alone again.  
  
And he spends a few minutes wondering if it was worth it. He’s bored, yeah, and he’s an adult, he has a right to have a television, management can’t dictate every single aspect of his life, he’s allowed to watch some fucking telly if he wants to, and if he’s really honest with himself he doesn’t want to, not at all, actually, but there’s some morbid curiosity throbbing inside him that will not go away, and he doesn’t want all that effort to go to waste, and he’s accepted his fate, anyway, he will find out what has happened outside of his cocoon of “surgery recovery” and “armed guards” even if it kills him.  
  
It might kill him. From his barely inclined position on his bed he can see his reflection on the dark screen, the first time he’s seen his own face since before...before what happened, and he looks _different_ , like there’s something in his very DNA that’s mutated overnight, turned him into a grizzled mess of worry lines and furrows of aching, burning embarrassment with a permanent film of fear latched on to his eyeballs, he needs to shave, too, he’s looking like a right hobo, and there’s this unbearable scraping feeling on his ribcage as he’s staring at himself, over and over, and he can’t take it anymore and so his hand makes the decision to press the power button and the screen lights up and it’s a cartoon, a silly, American cartoon, and it doesn’t even matter what it is because he can’t see himself anymore, thank god thank god.  
  
There’s a yellow talking dog and a kid, weirdly proportioned, and a floating vampire chick and strange creatures and it’s fucking bizarre but he likes it, and he gets sucked in so fast, and it’s mindless but also really fucking clever and it’s over before he wants it to be, he felt himself _smile_ a few times during it, and he never thought he’d do that ever again, and it’s probably not playing on any of the other channels but he has to check, even if that means stumbling into a newscast, even if that means seeing people talk about him and speculate about Harry and reveal what has happened to the rest of the lads, because he knows somewhere deep inside himself, tucked away into his cranium, that the other lads aren’t okay, something has happened to all of them, but he’s willing to risk it, but god he’s fucking terrified. He makes himself press the up button anyway.  
  
“--my hope for the ultimate outcome of this situation is that we as a nation, or even as a community of people around the globe, will become much more aware of the importance of preventative mental health measures, and perhaps we can look to this horrible situation as a blessing in disguise--”  
  
It’s not that show, it’s a silver-haired woman being interviewed, probably a psychologist of some sort, and he hates her, _hates_ her, has his insides burn with how much he hates her. This could never be a blessing, how _dare_ she suggest that what happened to him, what he is going through, what the rest of the lads are going through, is a _blessing_. Fuck her. Fuck her fuck her _fuck_ her.  
  
Zayn presses the up button. The anger frothing inside him has given him some strange sort of energy, filled him with a bizarre hybrid of bravery and curiosity and not giving a fuck. He isn’t afraid anymore to find out what has happened to the other lads, he isn’t scared of what people are saying about him.  
  
“--an anonymous source from inside the very hospital where the boys are staying has reported, contradicting earlier reports, that drug tests of the boys have been negative, ruling out drugs as the cause of Harry Styles’ apparent mental collapse earlier this week.”  
  
A blank-eyed news anchor says the words, his face contorting into a smile seconds later as he introduces the next story, a local one, about a dog saving a small child from drowning in a river, like nothing has happened, like what happened to Harry doesn’t fucking matter, and the news anchor obviously doesn’t fucking care about anything more important than the whiteness of his fucking teeth, doesn’t care that thank fucking god Harry’s not on drugs, he’s not on drugs, he’s okay at least in that respect, and how can the news anchor be so unmoved by that knowledge, how can he not be hunched over in backbreaking relief, fuck him fuck him fuck him. Fuck him.  
  
The anger stretches his windpipe, forces its way out through his nose, cracking all of his molars with the force of it. It occurs to him, suddenly, that he really, really wants to throw something against a wall. So he does, lets his arm reach over and grab the glass of water sitting on the little table next to his bed and he launches it, and the sound it makes as it shatters is the most beautiful thing in the world, and it at once becomes the most satisfying, most fulfilling thing he’s ever done. It becomes natural, inherent inside him, to do it again with the tv remote, his pillows next, he’s about to tear his IV out of his arm to throw because it’s the only thing left when--  
  
“Zayn, Zayn Zayn,” he hears faintly, as if his ears are clogged with fog or sour cream, and it takes a million seconds for that idiotic thought to register in his head, why would sour cream be in his ears, but he forgets how stupid he’s being when he realizes that it’s Louis, standing in the doorway, looking alarmed and fucking scared but otherwise alright.  
  
His arms collapse, as if an invisible wire holding them up has been snapped by Louis’ voice, with a soft thump onto the blankets, and for a second the only other sound he registers is his own harsh breathing, but then the crisp sharp acidy sound of a woman’s voice fills the room, and it’s the telly, and he hears his name, and he holds his breath, because--  
  
“there have been no arrests in the assault of Zayn Malik, member of English boy band One Direction, who was brutally attacked early yesterday morning. A source working with the investigation, speaking on condition of anonymity, says that suspects include members of a violent white supremacist gang. That source’s statement comes after the recent classification of Malik’s case as a hate crime, information that was released in the press conference earlier this morning. Police say that--”  
  
“Oh, Zayn....” Louis’ face rearranges itself into something softer, more like worry than alarm, as he talks over the news reporter, and the way he says Zayn’s name kind of shifts something dark inside Zayn’s chest, and all the anger inside him burns itself out, and he’s left a wayward shell, teetering on something unnerving like tears, not again he promised himself he wouldn’t, he won’t he won’t he won’t--  
  
and he doesn’t, he swallows it back, fills himself back up with something akin to resolve and will and _iwon’tletthemwin_ , even though now he knows that they’re still out there, because if Louis’ here they can’t get him.  
  
“Let’s turn this off, okay,” Louis says to him, his tone light and cautious and almost soothing, although Zayn can see that for some reason Louis’ hands are trembling. “Probably not the best thing to be watching.”  
  
Zayn nods, okay fine Louis do whatever you want, he’d probably do whatever Louis asked of him right now, because he realizes as Louis walks over to the television and presses a button on top of it and the screen goes dark that fucking hell he’s missed having his lads around, how could he ever have made them go away, why would he do that to himself, and oh god, Niall, how could he do that to Niall when Niall was in such a bad way--  
  
“Where’s Niall, Louis,” he blurs, his mouth making sounds that are urgent and sharp and bony. He needs to apologize, needs to make Niall so incredibly, acutely aware of how fucking sorry Zayn is, it has to be now or he might burst, blow up.  
  
“I might have done something,” Louis says, not explaining Niall’s location at all, and not making any sense at all really, “and I’m not quite sure what’s going to happen because of it, and lots of people are probably looking for me right now...”  
  
“But Niall, what does that have to do with Niall,” Zayn asks, hoping the burning guilt inside him bleeds through to the surface.  
  
Louis cringes.  
  
“Alright, so Niall, he did something, and I’m not sure why, I have no idea why he’d do this, but he took a scalpel to his head--”  
  
what? the words grab his intestines and twist, pulling them out through his navel, what what what is niall dead? he can’t be, louis wouldn’t be acting like this, wouldn’t be sitting here like this all nonchalant, it’s impossible it can’t be true--  
  
Louis’ eyes gape open and then a second later he twitches, almost, leans forward with some kind of urgency.  
  
“Oh god, no, god no Zayn he’ll be fine once they patch him up, just bald for awhile, it’s just--”  
  
His lungs collapse for a second in relief.  
  
“He was bleeding on the floor when I found him, and there were fans and paps just watching and taking pictures and I just got so angry, because they weren’t helping him at all, Zayn, they were making it so much worse, and I didn’t mean to, really, I just wanted them to go away, and I might have threatened them, and I was going to do something, I really was, something really bad, but then security showed up and so I turned around and came straight here because that was the only place I could think of to go, and--”  
  
Louis’ breathing heavily, each exhalation catching ever so slightly in his chest, and he stops himself for a second before he starts talking again, like he’s preparing himself for some great struggle in the next few seconds, and the bitterness swells up inside of Zayn again, some greasy, vile voice skulking around his head, saying _you don’t get to feel bad, you don’t get to hurt, i had it far worse than you did, you can’t even imagine what i’ve been through, shut up shut up Louis,_ and it kind of settles over his skin in a slimy film, the knowledge that from now on maybe for forever they all will be resenting each other for feeling pain.  
  
“I was about to kill them, or try to kill them, Zayn,” Louis says, his voice sagging. “Those girls, the reporters, I think there was a nurse there, too. I was going to hurt them, and I didn’t care, not at all, I had the scalpel that Niall used in my hand, and I was screaming at them, and they were filming, and I was going to kill them, and I wanted to...”  
  
oh  
  
this is bad.  
  
this is really bad.  
  
He feels deflated.  
  
“I don’t know if there’s going to be trouble, I don’t know what happens when you wave a knife around at people in America, and oh god what if there’s a _lawsuit_ or something, what if I go to _jail?_ ”  
  
Zayn’s chest feels like something’s latched onto it, squeezing and constricting his bones. He hasn’t thought of that.  
  
“And I’m the only one of us who hasn’t been _hospitalized_ and that means that I’m the only one who’s going to leave tonight, if I don’t get, like, _arrested_ ,” Louis murmurs. “I’m going to be the only one at the hotel or wherever the hell management’s going to put me and I don’t want to be alone but I’m going to be. Although at the rate you lads are going I’ve got a fair shot at ending up in the hospital too.”  
  
Wait.  
  
The only one?  
  
What happened to Liam? 

  
“Why is Liam hospitalized, Lou.” He doesn’t ask it because he doesn’t want to know, not really. He just throws it out there without any inflection and any sign that if Liam’s been attacked or raped or tortured Zayn might crumble.  
  
Louis cringes.  
  
Zayn holds his breath.  
  
“Some nurses were watching the news, and I overheard bits of it, not sure if I got the whole story or not. But what I gathered was that Liam was trying to leave, escape or something, and he wasn’t in the right state of mind, obviously, and--” he breaks off, looking pointedly at Zayn. “Are you sure you want to know, Zayn?”  
  
A quick jerky nod. He doesn’t care what the knowledge will do to him. He just wants to know.  
  
“Alright, then,” Louis sighs, and it slams quietly into Zayn that maybe Louis doesn’t want to tell, that it hurts him to tell, that he might resent Zayn for making him tell. “He found an exit that lead to a balcony, one of those little ones, and he apparently decided to climb down and he fell something like fourteen feet onto the balcony below, messed himself up quite a bit but he’s supposed to be alright, a few broken bones and the like. Could have been worse.”  
  
Oh god Liam. He could have chosen an exit that didn’t have a balcony under it, he could have fucking died. Oh Liam.  
  
“God, what’s happening to us,” Zayn blurs.  
  
There’s no answer, and Zayn wonders if maybe he’s broken a code that all of them silently promised to each other, that talking about it makes it worse, makes it more real, as if leaving it inside their heads somehow dulls reality.  
  
It doesn’t.  
  
The door opens and both of them flinch violently, swinging their heads round so fast that Zayn feels a twinge of pain echo against his brow bone.  
  
“Oh, there you are, Louis,” Paul says calmly and nonchalantly.  
  
“Nice to see you, Paul,” Louis says equally as nonchalantly but there’s something dangerous in his tone and Zayn feels like he knows nothing anymore.  
  
“I came to talk to Zayn but this applies to you, too, Louis,” Paul starts. “It’s become too dangerous for you lads to stay here any longer, and we’ve finally found a house of sorts for you as all of you have been cleared--”  
  
“That’s a nice way of saying that the hospital is kicking us out, aren’t they,” Louis interrupts, crossing his arms and scowling, like he’s taking it personally.  
  
“Yes, they are,” Paul says evenly. “I don’t blame them, either, to be honest.”  
  
A beat of silence and then--  
  
“Yes, because it’s Zayn’s fault he was almost beaten to death, and it’s Liam’s fault he fell off a balcony,” Louis spits, eyes blazing, “and it’s Niall’s fault that all those people attacked him, and it’s Harry’s fault we’re all here in the first place, and it’s my fault that--”  
  
“Lou--” Zayn starts. He doesn’t think Paul meant it the way Louis took it, really. Louis’ going to do something he regrets, Zayn just knows it, Louis’ burning bridges left and right here.  
  
“You lads are making hell for this hospital and your security team and most of that’s out of your control. Most of it,” Paul says. “It’s not fair to anyone for you to stay here any longer.”  
  
Zayn sees Louis’ mouth open, and he knows Louis is going to say something or do something that’ll blow up the room.  
  
“So we’ll all be together, then?” he cuts in, trying to derail Louis’ attack or outburst or storming out of the room or whatever else he could possibly do.  
  
“Counting the private nurses and the psychologist we’ve hired for all of you, yeah.” Paul smiles sympathetically, like he knows that it’s not the ideal situation.  
  
Yeah, Paul, it’s not fucking ideal. They’ll be together, but they won’t be alone.  
  
“How are we going to get out?” Louis grimaces. “Niall and Liam got eaten alive out there last time.”  
  
A swallow of guilt, then. That was Zayn’s fault, making them come to the hospital after he’d been attacked, and generating all that extra press, too, he probably made the crowds so much bigger than they would’ve if he had just fucking stayed in his room instead of wandering the city in the middle of the night. He’s so fucking stupid.  
  
“It’s much better out there now than before--” Paul starts.  
  
“We’re not doing that again.”  
  
Louis’ mouth is tight and his eyes are daggers. The tension in the room saws into Zayn’s throat.  
  
“Some girl stuck a sharp piece of metal into Liam’s _neck_. They made him _bleed_. Niall almost got torn apart. We are not doing that again,” Louis says darkly and dangerously. “I am _not_ letting you do that to us again. You are not going to do that to Harry.”  
  
The back of his throat is burning hot and unbearably tingly and it happens every time there’s a conflict between people, he hates conflict, his chest is tight and he can barely digest the words that Paul and Louis are throwing at each other, just the bits like _“torn apart”_ and _“bleed”_ and _“restraining orders”_ and _“could kill us this time,”_ until the tone of Louis’ voice makes him shudder and he finally grasps the idea of having to go through a massive throbbing crowd, visualizes it in his head, having to hear people screaming at him and slamming questions at him and _touching_ him, and _what if those men are in the crowd, they could take him or kill him or do it for real this time,_ and he realizes that he is not going to let Paul do this to him, or any of the lads. They have been through too much already.  
  
“I’m not doing it either,” he mumbles. Paul and Louis stare dumbly at him. Their voice boxes seem to have shattered.  
  
He takes a breath.  
  
“Please don’t make us, Paul,” he says, sounding pathetic and whinging and like a small child, and it’s completely embarrassing, but maybe it works in his favor because instead of fighting him on it Paul seems worn out.  
  
“If you would just listen to me for a moment,” Paul sighs, “you’d hear that the police have gotten the crowds under control. Most everyone has gone home, anyway, now that it’s dark out. You’ll have a police escort, and--”  
  
Louis stands up abruptly.  
  
“If you’ll just listen to me, Paul, you’d hear that we don’t much feel like getting mobbed again. We’re not leaving that way.”  
  
The two stare at each other. Paul towers over Louis but Louis somehow seems bigger. He usually does.  
  
“How do you propose you leave, Louis?” Paul asks. “I’d like to hear you figure out a way to get all five of you safe and as low key as possible to the house.”  
  
Zayn feels as though he’s watching a boxing match, and it’s exhausting, and at this point he doesn’t care who wins even if it’s Paul, which will mean everything he’s terrified of but he’s so so tired of this.  
  
“Shut up, will you,” he finds himself muttering.  
  
He’ll get through this, Paul wouldn’t lie to them, and it doesn’t even make a bit of sense for those men to be here, and so he’ll get through it the best he can, and then he’ll be with Harry and Niall and Louis and Liam and everything will be a little more right and fuck that’s cheesy but all of the bad things besides Harry have happened when they weren’t together and they need each other, Zayn just knows it, and what Louis is doing right now is delaying that, _sabotaging_ it in a way even if he’s just sticking up for them.  
  
“Lou, just drop it, alright. We’ll manage.” His muscles steel themselves for the force of Louis’ anger directed towards him, but it never comes. Louis’ mouth scrunches, and then he nods, a jerky sigh of defeat, as he sits back down. He looks small.  
  
Paul relaxes. “Alright, then. I’ll go grab a nurse to get a wheelchair for you, standard procedure, I’m afraid, and we’ll be leaving as soon as we get the rest of the lads together.”  
  
He leaves and then it’s just Louis and Zayn, and he’s afraid to look at Louis because what if Louis’ angry with him? What he thinks that Zayn has betrayed him? He is so tired of things being wrong between him and everyone else on this earth. It is backbreaking.  
  
“I can’t believe they’re letting Harry out of the hospital,” Louis says, instead of words meant to cut and tear and shred. “I thought he’d be stuck here for ages. It’s good, though. I don’t--I don’t think this is the place for him, especially after--”  
  
He cuts himself off, looking ill.  
  
Oh no.  
  
There is something horrifying and choking and blinding on the other end of the sentence. Zayn is seconds from knowing it. He savors the moment of ignorance.  
  
“After what?”  
  
There’s a beat of painful, vile silence, and then--  
  
“We barely stopped him from jumping off of the roof earlier today,” Louis croaks lowly and faintly and hoarsely. His chest shudders once, as if revealing that fucking horrific piece of information has taken a weight off of his shoulders, has released it into the world to wreak havoc and _destroy_.  
  
Zayn’s sternum aches as it sags and crooks and contorts to accommodate this new fact that they almost lost Harry, they almost lost him for good, he’s worse than Zayn thought, he’s worse than everyone thought.  
  
“Fucking hell,” he says, rolling the words around in his mouth, trying to see if they fit the gravity of the situation, if they do enough. They don’t, they fail in the worst way, but it’s too late and he doesn’t know what he should have said anyway.  
  
Louis nods. “He says he wasn’t actually going to do it, but...”  
  
Oh Harry.  
  
“Does he know?”  
  
Frowning, Louis looks curiously at him. “About?”  
  
“Me. What happened.”  
  
His face lined and taunt and pained, Louis looks to the door, as if he hopes Paul will swoop in with the wheelchair and save him from having to talk. The bitterness snarls inside him again, _i have a right to know, you don’t get to keep it to yourself, i don’t care if it’s hard on you, you don’t know the meaning of pain._ He ignores it.  
  
“S’alright. You don’t have to tell me, Lou,” he sighs, cringing when the relief blossoms across Louis’ face, a morbid orchard lining his cheekbones.  
  
The guilt grows on him like moss, dark and green and dirty. His bones are covered in it. He wonders if he’ll always feel this way, have this inky heaving mass gnawing at his ribcage forever. It makes him sick. It’ll be with him for eternity. He’ll never be rid of it.  
  
Louis’s tone is bright and forced and shrill when he speaks. “Can I have a go with the wheelchair, when you’re in it” he asks.  
  
He knows that Louis wants him to play along with the charade, wants him to feign worry and voice concerns that Lou will end up crashing him into a hot nurse or breaking his leg, and then cave in enthusiastically with a mischievous grin. He knows how this works because they’ve done a variation of this scenario dozens of times, they’re partners in crime, and this is Louis’ way of trying to introduce normality into their bizarre and terrifying new reality. But it doesn’t belong here.  He’s too tired to try.  
  
“No,” he manages to say. The syllable grinds at his chest.  
  
He looks down at his blanket, picking at a tiny little hole in the woven thread until it becomes big enough to stick his finger through it. Zayn waits for the inevitable joke from Louis about sticking fingers into holes but it never comes. It makes him feel sick.  
  
The silence until Paul comes back, aching, stifling, unbearable silence, makes him feel decayed.  
  
Maybe being together isn’t going to improve anything.  
  
Maybe it will make things worse.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	13. Louis // 8:39 PM

**Louis. 8:39 PM**

****  
It’s quiet.  
  
There’s no one out here, not a single pap or fan or crazy (redundant, the bitter voice hisses inside his head, that’s redundant), and maybe Paul was right, maybe they’ll get away and escape without being mobbed. He tries to swallow that hope down. This constant disappointment in people is getting hard to stand. Better not hope for secrets or common decency or something going right, it’ll jinx it.   
  
They’ve dressed Harry in awful clothes, enormous track pants and a baggy brown teeshirt with a potato on it that looked like they’ve been pinched out of a rubbish bin next to a charity shop. Harry looks like he’s drowning. In more ways than one.  
  
In the few seconds after they asked him who he wanted to ride with, back in a long hallway where he couldn’t take his eyes off of Harry, bony and hunched over, he had reeled with shock at the idea that they were giving him a choice, giving him a taste of freedom (that he hasn’t had in years, a voice snarls in his head, he hasn’t known freedom since he signed that first contract, gave his life away forever), that he wasn’t expecting.   
  
He’d picked Harry to ride with, after a hurried run-through in his head of all of the lads. Louis couldn’t take much more of Zayn, which sounds terrible but it’s true, he was about to keel over back in the room, what with Zayn decomposing right there in front of him. And Niall...he is afraid, so so scared that Niall will be afraid of him, after what he did in front of him. Better to avoid that nightmare all together. Liam had to stay at the hospital to get his casts adjusted, poor lad. Still trapped there, still rotting in the lion’s den. But mostly because he knows Harry. He knows that if he hadn’t picked Harry he would have crushed him between his fingertips.  
  
Even though it suffocates him, makes him shake with the idea of sitting trapped in a car with him, he couldn’t not say Harry. So Harry it is.  
  
A security guard, stony-faced, all muscle, opens the car door for them and however irrational it is, Louis wants to scream at him, _we’re not broken we can open a goddamn door for ourselves_. There are so many screams inside him that it’s a miracle he’s able to stay quiet.  
  
It’s one of those cars with a divider behind the first two seats. The driver and the security guard are hidden in front of it, eaten up by the dark inkiness of the divider, probably a one-way window. Louis can’t shake the feeling that he’s being watched. It crawls up his neck and slides cold fingers around his throat. Go away, he wants to scream. Leave us alone.   
  
He wishes he was one of those people that can fall asleep anywhere, at any time. Not him. Not with those people watching him, not with Harry trembling in the seat next to him. He’s so tired.  
  
Although there’s been a few fuzzy moments where he’s been able to slip into a kind of half-sleep, drifting off into a purgatory of semi-coherent thoughts and vague nightmares, he’s barely slept at all, and all he wants to do is take a double strength sleeping pill and burrow himself into a thousand heavy blankets and not exist for ten hours.   
  
“You said you’d fix this,” Harry whispers out of nowhere, sinking into the back of the leather seat like he hopes it will swallow him.   
  
Louis is a coward. He pretends not to have heard. Something splinters deep inside of him. He wonders how he is still in one piece. So many things have cracked and bent and shaved away his insides that it is hard to think in complex sentences anymore.   
  
It takes effort to think, effort to feel. What once was effortless is now a struggle. He isn’t Louis anymore. He’ll never be Louis again. The realization is a deep dark ache that curls against the roof of his mouth, pushing and expanding until he is incapable of speech.  
  
“I’m sorry for doing this to you,” Harry mumbles, his eyelids sagging with guilt. Louis is so intimately familiar enough with the emotion now that he could recognize it in anyone. Fuck forensic psychologists, all they need is Louis to solve crimes, he’s fucking fantastic at seeing guilt now. Maybe that’s what he’ll do if--when, he can’t stop himself from hissing, he’d be an idiot to hope that they won’t break up after this, he’ll just hurt himself more, he needs to accept it now--the band breaks up.   
  
He’s being melancholy and stupid. God. It’s not doing him any good, and it’s certainly not fucking helping Harry.  
  
“Don’t be sorry, Harry,” Louis says, careful not to use the nickname that seems to shove spikes into Harry now.   
  
“But I--I ruined this, ruined our lives,” Harry croaks, curling into himself somehow even more. His knees stick up so bony, sharp pointy knobs that go on forever. But Harry is so so so so skinny. He takes up so little room. “How can I not be sorry?”  
  
Louis sees this paradox. Hot tears sting up against his eyeballs. Louis somehow manages to blink them away.  
  
“Just--just stop apologizing, Harry.”  
  
It comes out sharper and slivery than he means it to, he only meant for Harry to understand that apologizing for nothing won’t make him feel better, it only lengthens the distance between them and okay. But it doesn’t matter what he meant it as, it only matters that Harry is cringing and sinking and choking silently beside him.  
  
“Hey, Haz,” he stumbles, “hey I didn’t mean it like that, I just meant that you have nothing to be sorry for, yeah?”  
  
Anything to make it stop, anything to make Harry not look like that, not feel like that.  
  
Harry’s hands are trembling. So is his bottom lip. It leaves deep dark welts on the inside of Louis’ chest.  
  
Anything to make it stop.   
  
His first instinct is, has always been, to hug Harry, keep him close and use Louis’ body heat to keep the darkness outside of Harry, use it to burn and destroy and conquer. He’s done it before, had to, once or twice, back on the X Factor when something in Harry’s pupils sucked the life out of Louis. It worked then. He doesn’t know if it will now.  
  
He doesn’t know if he is enough anymore.  
  
“I do,” Harry moans. “This is pathetic, I’m pathetic, I’m fucked up, I fucked up.”  
  
The anger suddenly sparks inside him and burrows out of his throat, surprising him with its ferocity.   
  
“You aren’t allowed to talk like that,” Louis says. His voice sounds stern and authoritative and like he knows what he’s doing. It came out of nowhere.  
  
Harry’s eyes swivel up to him. He blinks. He’s listening.  
  
The reaction is encouraging. He’s making this up as he goes but he does that for everything else. The familiar sweet burn of confidence kindles inside him. Maybe he can do this.  
  
“You listen to me, Harry. You’re not to think like that. I’m not letting you and you’d better do it or else.”  
  
Harry shrugs, folding a shoulder over until he’s curled up against the door. Louis vaguely wonders if he could fit in the cup holder.  
  
It didn’t work. Disappointment precipitates. There’s a nimbus cloud coating his uvula.  
  
But then--  
  
“Kinda like 1984 or something, then,” Harry mumbles dryly into leather. “Not letting me think. How Orwellian of you, Lou.”  
  
A strange bark, his chest constricting for a second, his mouth stretching--  
  
Oh.  
  
He’s laughing.  
  
He almost forgot what it felt like.  
  
Louis wishes he had actually read 1984 in whatever year of English it was assigned, because he wants to keep this going, he wants to reply with some witty retort, but he can’t, he barely knows what Orwellian even fucking means, and panic surges through him because Harry’s making jokes, Harry’s, like, talking like a normal person, and Harry will go back to this horrible whimpering self-hateful mass if Louis doesn’t do something, and that _can’t_ happen, _he’s not going to let that happen,_ and so before he knows what he is doing he’s--  
  
\--launching himself across the seat and throwing his body against Harry’s, crushing Harry into the door and burying his face to Harry’s collarbone, frantic frantic frantic.  
  
Harry’s brittle against him, bones locked. Louis can feel Harry’s jaw clenched against the top of his head.  
  
Come on come on come on--  
  
A trembling sigh, then all the muscles in Harry give out at once.   
  
Louis has to pull his head away, because Harry’s is kind of crushing him, and with the absence of something holding him up Harry droops downwards until somehow, impossibly, he fits into the space between him and the seat in front of him. Louis catches a look at his face and it’s wet, his cheeks are coated in a sheeny layer, and oh Harry. Oh oh oh Harry.  
  
“Good lad,” he finds himself saying. “You’re so good Harry.”  
  
That does something to Harry, because his head snaps up and he pulls away and and he swipes at his face half-heartedly, like he knows it’d be foolish to try to remove all traces of the fact that he’s been fucking silently sobbing for the last who knows how many minutes.   
  
“I’m not a dog,” Harry mutters, his face darkening. “Don’t fucking patronize me.”  
  
It smacks the words out of him for a moment, just slaps him across the face, rips a hole in his chest. Anger is good, Louis has to tell himself. Anger means he’s not sad, that he’s not wallowing, that’s good that’s good that’s good. But rationalizing it doesn’t make it hurt less and doesn’t make that fucking rock in the pit of his stomach shrink any goddamn less.   
  
(he wonders if maybe he’ll hate harry when this is over)  
  
Harry turns back to the window, his shoulders hunched in something like defiance. Either that or he’s closing in on himself again.   
  
The biting, frozen feeling of fear simmers up in him again. Maybe it never left.  
  
“Harry,” Louis says, watching his hand snake out and rest on Harry’s arm. “Harry, look at me.”  
  
The car starts moving, finally, get them away from here, this hellhole. Harry doesn’t look at him. But Louis can feel the muscles in his shoulder unclench. He’s sure, then, even more sure than he was on top of that roof, that getting Harry out of that hospital is what’s right. The taunting glimmer of hope-tinged optimism surges back. Don’t go away, he whispers to it. Stay here. Stay with me.   
  
When Harry turns his head around, slowly and creakily and excruciating, he has to tie his tongue to the roof of his mouth to keep from grinning like a madman. Don’t want to scare Harry, don’t want to make Harry think he’s gone crazy, too.  
  
“Lou?” asks Harry, in a voice that’s low and deep and writhing.   
  
At once Louis knows what’s going to happen, he’s going to ask about something Louis doesn’t want to talk about, and _god damn it Harry you’re draining the life out of me._  
  
He steels himself and makes the muscles in his face slide and squirm and arrange themselves until there is what he hopes is a pleasant blank face.  
  
“Yeah, Harry?” His voice is gaunt. He feels like he’s dying.   
  
“Can you tell me what happened to Zayn? Actually happened?”   
  
_fuck_  
  
“He was--there was--it--” he’s searching for the words, and they’re not there, there’s only words that are strikingly wrong, and how the hell do you tell your emotionally unstable best mate that his other best mate had had _that_ happen to him.   
  
“Don’t you dare sugar coat it, Louis,” Harry says, his eyes pleading and raw. “I know it’s something bad, and it’s something no one will tell me, and they think I won’t be able to handle it, but I _can_ , I _need_ to know, and you’ll tell me, right Lou? You understand.”  
  
Harry sags back against the seat, looking exhausted and frayed and hollow, and it’s then that Louis realizes that it’s the most words Harry has said in one sitting since it happened.  
  
Louis understands. He is so intensely aware of that roaring need of knowing. It’s torturous and fills the ribcage til it feels like it’s going to blast open and shatter all the bones.   
  
But he can’t tell Harry.  
  
He can’t.  
  
Panic is lining his bones. He doesn’t want to lie to Harry. He doesn’t want to be like them, not ever. But the truth isn’t something Harry should know. Later, maybe. But not now. Not like this.  
  
“They haven’t told us much, either,” he sighs, settling on a half-truth.   
  
Deflating, Harry just nods. He looks like he doesn’t believe Louis, like he knows that Louis just lied straight to his face.  
  
Louis’ throat clenches. He hates this.   
  
Com _e on, get to the house already, let me out of this car now before I explode,_ he wants to scream. His hands are shaking with the amount of effort it’s taking to not reach out and pound on the divider until it shatters.   
  
It’s rising up his throat like vomit, except it isn’t vomit, it’s worse, it’s raw fear, making his chest expand, and suddenly it’s out of his throat and pouring into his mouth. He’s choking on it.  
  
He can’t let Harry know, he can’t let the two men in front know, he can’t let anyone know, because it’s not about him, it’s never been, and so he shoves a cork in his mouth and breathes through his nose, stop stop stop stop stop  
  
And something stops, it’s the car, they’ve stopped. The lack of movement slows the fear until it’s more like molasses than a massive roaring wave, and the muscles in his neck unfreeze enough to wear he’s able to look around, and he sees Harry staring at him, and Harry’s afraid.  
  
“Are--are you alright, Lou?” Harry whispers, eyes booming with a quiet terror.  
  
Louis swallows.  
  
“Yeah, Harry,” he manages to say. “Yeah, I’m fine.”  
  
He’s really not.  
  
He's really, really not.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 


	14. Liam // 9:21 PM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh dear. it's almost been a year. i'm very sorry about that, just had personal and academic stuff get in the way. not to fear though, this fic is not abandoned! here's a chapter for ya. and here's to hoping another one comes soon.

**Liam. 9:21 PM.**

Well--  
  
He certainly didn’t become Joan of Arc up there on that balcony.  
  
No one has told him where he’s hurt or what happened to his body when he flung himself off into the crowd, ending up by some miracle onto the balcony below. He’s had to listen, concentrate on only listening and maybe sometimes on breathing, though that’s definitely a far second. It’s mostly medical jargon that he recognizes from the seasons of Grey’s Anatomy he’s seen, though he has absolutely no idea what most of it’s meant. The nurses have talked to each other, though, about what they’re going to tell to TMZ or any of the other millions of rabid reporters (and put bets on how much money they’ll get for the tips, and if it would be worth being fired for), and they’ve put it into words he can understand.  
  
A broken arm, dislocated shoulder, concussion, a bitten tongue so swollen Liam can’t tell anyone what really happened. This forced silence is burning him.  
  
The cast on his arm is white, sterile, makes him feel old and brittle. When he broke his arm way back in third year he was asked what color he wanted. Now they just assumed he wanted white. He didn’t. The urge to tear it off and demand a green one is so strong he wants to laugh at himself. He’s not a child.  
  
If he had broken his arm any other time the lads would’ve filled it up with doodles, penises and tattoo ideas and lyrics and poems, Zayn probably would’ve scouted out the whole forearm for himself, wrote _property of zayn_ on it. Now it’ll be empty, tattered, bare. _Like him_ , the horrible voice inside him hisses. _You’re nothing without them, you’ll be nothing soon_.  
  
A surge of pain rises through his arm when he tries to move it, singing and biting and whole, and the voice is silenced.  
  
He wants to tell the nurses off, wants to throw things at them, the way they gossip and murmur and drop hints that he’s gone crazy just like Harry (that’s the one that makes him just about jump out of the hospital bed and throw punches, even at the women nurses). Except even if he had the energy to do that, he couldn’t.  
  
Soft white restraints tether him to the hospital bed. Every time he looks at them he has to close his eyes, they are so terrible and demeaning and awful and for god’s sake he’s in so much pain he can’t really breathe properly, much less try to throw himself off another balcony.  
  
He’s heard murmurs, quiet, scandalous whispers, floating through the air when they think he’s asleep. So quickly he’s learned the power of silence. He’s on suicide watch, the voices say, just in case, just in case, tied down like a rabid animal, just in case, just in case.  
  
That is--  
  
\--that wrenches his stomach, sears his throat. What will his mum think, what will everyone think. In hindsight it probably did look like he threw himself off that balcony on purpose, oh god he’s so embarrassed, how could he have ever thought that it was a good idea, he’s such an _idiot._  
  
This hospital is toxic. It’s putting things in his mind that don’t belong there, should never belong there, and he wants out, he _needs_ out, and he feels the panic weave through his ribs and strangle his lungs. So familiar, so normal the sensation feels now, it’s as if he was born with this heavy leaden weight in his chest, has been carrying this aching mass for so long it has become a part of him.  
  
He can’t fall apart again, though. Can’t let it overpower him, he let it happen once and almost died, he’s got to be stronger, for Harry and Niall and Zayn and Louis. A girl he dated for a few weeks had panic attacks, he’s sure that what he’s feeling are what he saw her go through, and she did something with her breathing, murmured something over and over until she got better, (he broke up with her because he thought she was crazy, was too much, oh god, what a little shit he was, if only he knew then what he knows now, the pain and the choking and the shaking, and the blindness that envelops you as it slides down your throat and smothers everything inside you, and the _terror)_ , and what was it? Goddamnit, what was it?  
  
\--he remembers, it was _i’m okay, i’m okay, i’m okay_ , inhale _i’m_ , exhale _okay_  
  
\-- _i’m okay_  
  
he does this for a minute, or maybe twenty, but sooner or later he can breathe without thinking hard about doing it, or concentrating on how the air leaving his lungs with a muted sigh felt like letting all the dark goop caking the walls of his insides out, or wondering when he was going to be able to stop doing it.  
  
“Liam,” someone says, and he flinches, hard (the last time that happened, it was when he was young and scared, a whisper of a man, taunted cruelly and relentlessly into dark corners, and he thought he was past being scared but _no_ ). It almost reverses all the progress he’s made, it scared him so much. He turns his head and it’s a nurse, a male one, hands reaching towards him.  
  
 “Liam, we’re moving you now, and we’re going to take the restraints off, okay, but we’re going to sedate you just a little bit, keep you calm and keep that arm steady, alright? “  
  
It’s these questions that don’t care about his answers that frustrate him the most, make him want to do things that would require him to need restraints. It’s not okay and he’s not alright with it but he can do nothing about it and fighting against it would make the drugs stronger, more enveloping, and so he screams _fuck you fuck you fuck all of you_ in his head at the nurses until it becomes a quiet whisper.  
  
\---  
  
He doesn’t realize the sedation has made him fall asleep until he wakes up, groggy, in a room that feels like home but smells completely strange.  
  
It’s an entirely bizarre situation and he has to keep his eyes closed for a while until he isn’t quite so dizzy, he remembers now, he was sedated, _drugged_ , the bastards.  
  
There’s pain everywhere inside him and voices around him, and he chooses to focus his attention, hard as it is to focus at the moment, on the voices because the pain is fucking miserable and the sounds of the people talking are comforting. It’s not until he recognizes them that he realizes why it feels like home.  
  
“Is he alright?”  
  
“Of course he’s alright, he’s _Liam_.”  
  
“But they said, they said--”  
  
“We know what they _said_ , Niall, but we know Liam, and he would never do something like this.”  
  
“We never thought Harry would do something like this either, though.”  
  
He can’t take it anymore.  
  
“I didn’t do anything except be really fucking stupid, lads,” he says softly and slowly, because his brain is working okay but his mouth is cottony and numb, like he’s gotten a fucking root canal. There’s also the fact that he bit his tongue nearly in half, it feels like, and so the words also come out garbled and warped and barely word-like at all.  
  
But the lads understand him, somehow, (course they do, they’re his boys) and even though his eyes are still closed on account of being so dizzy he feels like he’s on a terrible roller coaster he can’t quite get off of, he can almost sense the turning of heads to stare down at him.  
  
“Fucking idiot you are, Liam,” a voice--Louis--says, but the words aren’t mad and Liam can almost picture the relieved smirk that has to be on his face.  
  
“Yeah,” he manages to whisper, he’s so tired that it’s all he can say. He still can’t open his eyes.  
  
“Look, Liam, I’m bald,” Niall laughs in a way that isn’t his old laugh, or even a laugh at all, really, it’s tinged, slashed with bitterness and weariness and sadness. Liam’s good hand is suddenly grabbed and he wants to flinch but before he can his hand is met with smooth skin and rough fabric, bandages maybe.  
  
It’s confusing and worrying but he forgets it for a second when a deeper voice, it belongs to Paul, he’s sure of it, orders the boys out, Liam needs his sleep, fuck that, he wants to yell, to hell with sleep, he needs his boys and he also needs to see how Harry’s doing, and ask why Niall is bald because how in the world would Niall end up bald and also where did the bandages come from, is there any one of them yet that hasn’t ended up hurt?  
  
“Ah Paul, give us a few more minutes, yeah?” Zayn asks. A hand comes down on top of his head, stroking in a way that would ordinarily be embarrassing but now reminds him of his mum, if it weren’t so big. If he wasn’t so tired he would protest but it is so soothing that he is surprised he’s not purring like a little kitten.  
  
“Yeah, Paul, we don’t want to leave him alone,” Niall chimes in, and puts a hand on top of Liam’s good hand. That’s not soothing, that makes him almost burst into tears.  
  
A heavy sigh. “Alright, lads, but only until he falls asleep. You lot need to check on Harry. He’s been asking for you.”  
  
Maybe they are going to be okay, Liam thinks as he succumbs to sleep. They’re going to be okay.  
  



End file.
